Iris
by Veszelyite
Summary: Two and a half years after the events at Fairy Park, the Parliament must come to a decision about the fate of a Three leaf.
1. Connection

**Iris**

A Clover fic

by Veszelyite

A/N: This is an old piece of fanfic, originally written under a different penname, which was never quite finished. It _has_ an ending, just not one that's ever been committed to paper or pixels. It's a sequel to another Clover fic, 'Icosahedron' which can also be found in the ffnet archives. Chapter 7 is completely new, and hasn't been posted anywhere before this. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

-V

WARNINGS: This fic contains major spoilers for all four tankoubons of Clover. It also contains implied M/M, M/F, and F/F relationships, although it's definitely _not_ a romance fic. There's also some non-consensual kissing and groping by a canon character...nothing terribly graphic, but that's the reason for the rating, so people who don't like that sort of thing should consider themselves forewarned.

----------

DISCLAIMER: The characters and settings of Clover do not belong to me, but instead are property of the extremely talented manga group CLAMP (and their associates). This is a work of fanfiction, and is posted for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.

----------

The symbol was a simple one, a design in green of a stem with multiple leaves.

General Kou knelt in the silence and the darkness of the room where the Parliament normally met. The room was empty today, the Parliament was not in session. Alone in the quiet, Kou was free to call up this single image, and to allow the sadness she felt upon seeing it to touch her time worn features. The outline of the emblem nearly filled the borders of the circular screen in front of her. At this magnification, the barcode marking inscribed within the symbol was easy to see...the serial number of the person who wore it.

"A seal of the Clover-leaf project," a voice spoke from behind her. She had not heard Sage Shuu enter the room, but it didn't surprise her to realize that the Chairman of the Parliament had followed her here. "...The mark of the Four-leaf Clover."

Kou didn't reply, studying the cloverleaf design a few more long moments before causing the picture to go dark. Shuu came forward and knelt in his usual place, looking down into his own screen's mirrored surface. Light played along the deep-etched planes of his face as the monitor came to life. "We won't be able to find her again," he said.

Kou smiled faintly. "No one can find a Four-leaf that doesn't wish to be found. Not even another Four-leaf Clover could do that."

The Chairman did not look up from his screen. To Kou's mild surprise, he let the observation pass without comment. "She came back once, to help one of the Three-leafs," he said. "She will come back again."

_She will come back, because she is in love_. General Kou didn't say the words out loud. She didn't need to. That simple fact was what the other members of the Parliament most feared.

"...And the Three-leaf," he continued. The light on his face flickered as the picture on the screen before him changed. "We'll have to come to a decision about what to do with him soon."

"The Three-leaf has given us no trouble," Kou spoke quietly. "It has been over four years since he left the research institute to go outside. In all that time, he has done nothing to go against the will of the Parliament."

Sage Shuu was unmoved by her mild protest. "The control we put on him is no longer effective. For that reason alone, something will need to be done."

General Kou bowed her head. It was dangerous, very dangerous, for a Clover to exist without control. She knew that better than anyone. She had been with the Clover Project since its inception. The project was wider reaching and had more complex roots than most people realized. Few knew about the existence of Clovers. Fewer still knew why they existed at all. "You will call a meeting of the Parliament?" she asked.

"It is time." He rose and turned to go, then stopped. "The Clover Project has not been nearly as successful as its supporters had initially hoped. Of all the Clovers, one is missing, and two are dead." He cast a significant gaze in her direction, his eyes focused intently on her face. "Perhaps it is finally time to terminate it altogether."

"That will require a vote by the Parliament," Kou said coolly. She knew it wasn't a serious threat. He was only testing her. Each member of Parliament was all too well aware that taking care to the three remaining Clovers within their reach would not be enough to bring the project to an end.

"Indeed." His heavy gaze rested on her a moment longer. "The Parliament acts for the welfare of this country. You should remember that the happiness of a handful of people is nothing compared to that."

She watched him silently as he left.

"Happiness," Kou whispered to the empty room, long after the echo of his footsteps had faded away. "Finding it is easy. But how long can a person make it last?"

----------

Far away from the council room and the discussions and intrigues of the Parliament, a young woman with white-blond hair stood on a balcony, eyes closed as she savored the warm summer breeze. Brightly colored birds with mechanical wings perched on the rail of the balcony on either side of her. They were her constant companions wherever she went.

For the moment, however, she ignored their presence here, shutting out even the pleasant feel of the wind, as she drew in her power and concentrated, sending her thoughts out over the distance...across the elusive electronic network that was called the _Minor Waves_. If she wanted to, she could speak through any telephone connection or radio in the world. But today her goal was a little trickier than that...because the person she wanted to speak to had to be able to answer her in the same way.

--_Lan_.--

As a Three-leaf, Lan had only limited access to the _Minor Waves_. He couldn't find her, but he could talk to her once she found him. She searched for him now, out across the distance that meant nothing to her power. It helped that she already knew exactly where to look.

--_Lan_.--

He was startled, she could feel that when he first heard her voice...saw his eyes widen in the multi-colored light cast onto his face by the computer screen. He looked up, casting his thought out in answer. His contact was weak, tenuous in this place he was trying to access without the aid of any electronic device. She 'caught' his return query, her thought closing over it like the handclasp of an old friend.

--_Suu_.--

--_Lan_,-- she said, her voice serious and somber. --_You have to leave that place. It's becoming very dangerous for you to stay._--

--_No_,-- he replied after a long moment of hesitation. Then, as if offering an explanation, he added, --_I can't_.--

--_You have to_,-- Suu insisted. --_The Parliament knows. They're deciding what to do about it now_.--

The statement did not surprise him. She felt his resignation, heard it in his voice. --_They were lenient to let it go this long_.-- It had been two years since Suu had first visited him in the hospital to cure him of the virus that had nearly taken his life. Two years. Since that time, two years was all that Lan had aged. Two years and not forty.

--_Gingetsu will not leave_,-- he said. --_Kazuhiko still looks for Oruha's killer. Gingetsu suspects those inquiries may bring repercussions from the Parliament, and won't abandon him._-- His voice took on a note of unbreakable resolve. --_I will not leave without Gingetsu._--

--_They may kill you if you stay_,-- she said.

--_They may kill me if I leave. They would not hesitate to kill other people, too_.-- There was a flicker in his concentration. --_Gingetsu is coming home_.-- The Lt. Colonel didn't know about these conversations on the _Minor Waves_, and there was always a chance that he, as a Two-leaf, might be able to sense them if he was in very close proximity. --_I have to go_.--

--_Be careful!_-- she called after him as he slipped out of contact. But he was already gone. Suu opened her eyes to see the bird perched by her hand regarding her with curiosity. Its outline blurred as she blinked to clear tearing eyes. "I tried to warn you," she whispered. "I just don't want anyone to be hurt."

----------

Lan woke up abruptly in the darkness of his room, startled from his sleep by some dream that he couldn't remember now. The red letters of the digital clock by his bedside indicated a time of 03:36. He lay very still for long moments, straining to hear any noise above the rapid beating of his own heart. It was silent. Slowly, he pushed back the covers, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and flinching slightly as his bare feet hit the cold floor. He didn't turn on the light, but instead crossed quietly to the door, pajama bottoms whispering slightly as he walked.

_Gingetsu_. He was gone tonight--working, of course. Lan had the house all to himself. For reassurance, he traced a hand down the wall, reaching past it with his mind to the wires beyond. Effortlessly, he interfaced with the security system. The system had been designed by a Two-leaf Clover and modified by a Three-leaf. Nothing should be able to get through those protections without setting them off.

Except perhaps for a group of five Wizards...

_You're becoming paranoid_, he told himself. He had never given the Parliament any reason to doubt that he would remain here within the confines of this building. Lan knew very well about the explosive device that Gingetsu had volunteered to bear for his sake, though the Lieutenant Colonel had never spoken of it. Surely the Wizards of the Parliament knew that he would never do anything that would cause Gingetsu to be killed.

...But, if they had somehow found out about his conversations with Suu...

All connections...alarms and security monitors seemed to be in place. Lan relaxed marginally. _Paranoid_, he chided. Soundlessly he opened the door and stepped out into the main room.

Somebody turned on the room lights.

It took a moment for Lan's eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. When they did, Lan saw four people, armed and armored, standing inside the main room. All were turned towards him and aiming guns. Not energy rifles, but old-fashioned projectile weapons. Very effective. A Clover had no control over ordinary bullets. Lan studied them with a sinking heart. It seemed that someone had decided to take away his small bit of freedom after all.

"Come with us," the man who happened to be nearest him said. He gestured with his gun towards the door.

Lan looked at him, the expression on his face becoming one of intense unhappiness. "Please," he said, his voice low and earnest, "Don't make me hurt you."

The man hesitated for a moment. Perhaps he appreciated the irony of the words...that a skinny young man with no weapons and clad only in pajama bottoms should be standing in the doorway, making such a statement. Then again, if the Parliament had sent them, they should be well aware of a Clover's powers.

"You have no choice," the man said. "You're coming with us."

"I won't go back. Even if you keep me apart from A, I won't go back to that place."

The man took a determined step forward. "You'll go where we tell you to."

"No." They were standing much too close to the walls. All four of them were. Two of them heard the noise behind them in time to turn, to see the wires carrying live current shooting out to entangle them. Their metal armor was no protection from a high voltage electrical surge. All four of the men dropped to the ground, convulsing. Within a few moments, they had stopped moving entirely.

Lan slowly walked over to the one who had spoken to him. Standing above him, he looked down at the soldier in sorrow.

"I didn't want to hurt you. You shouldn't have tried to make me go."

There had to be more soldiers than this. Lan wouldn't be able to leave the house by simply walking out the front door. He glanced back over his shoulder into his room. The computer…. Lan bit his lip. If the Wizards of Parliament were assembled, they would be able to block a _Transfer_, if he attempted one. To go directly against them would be impossible.

Still, what A had said to him at their last meeting had been true. Lan would rather die than be locked back up in the research institute again. Most wild birds didn't live long in cages. If they took him back to that place and forced him to live imprisoned and isolated, he knew that he wouldn't survive.

The computer lines were his best hope for escape. He had to try that first. If fewer than five Wizards had assembled, there was a chance he could slip out past them without even alerting them to his presence. Swiftly, Lan went back into his room, leaving the lights off and staying carefully away from the large windows. The computer workstation hummed to life with a single mental command. He closed his eyes as it powered up, concentrating as the hardware he required for personal transfer crystallized beneath his palms.

The wizards didn't interfere with the equipment download. Lan took it as a positive sign. Perhaps he'd be able to win free after all.

He was wrong.

Without warning, a hand snaked over his left shoulder, grabbing his chin firmly and yanking him wildly off balance against the bony support of a broad shoulder. Lan's hands flew up to claw at the arm, even as he felt a cold sting in the side of his neck, a sharp pain that was rapidly followed by spreading numbness. Some kind of strong narcotic surged through his system with alarming speed. Almost immediately, his vision tilted and started to turn hazy. It was impossible to fight the drug…or the thickly-muscled arms that wrapped around him like bands of steel, refusing to let go. Lan felt himself sagging helplessly back in his assailant's unrelenting grip.

"Ginge...tsu...," he whispered.

A warm breath of air fanned across his cheek. "He can't hear you," a man's voice said pleasantly. The hands around him loosened, and the black and white tile of the floor came up underneath Lan and struck with jarring force. For a moment, he thought he saw bright, dancing lights...the beautiful lights of the city at night. Then they danced away, and he saw nothing at all.

A shadow passed over the body crumpled untidily on the floor, as an older man stepped over him to the desk. With his right hand, he reached into his long, almost medical-style coat and removed a small, rectangular box. It was covered with knobs and levers, and had two circular lenses set into the front of it. The man set it down on the varnished wood with a soft, metallic click. His left hand reached up to touch the button of a microphone set into his ear.

"Are you recording?" he asked to the air.

"Yes." It was a woman that replied, her voice coming clearly over the electronics in the earpiece.

"Good."

The man walked back over to where Lan lay, prodding one bare shoulder with the toe of his boot until the tattoo that was marked there came fully into the light. Three-leaf Clover. The man chuckled unpleasantly and dropped down onto one knee, removing his glove and brushing his fingertips across the smooth surface of unnaturally dyed skin. ...Across the barcode marking of the Clover Project.

The man placed a hand on the back of Lan's neck and rolled him over against his knee. "Not quite the same," he murmured, trailing his fingers across the side of Lan's face and along the line of his chin, tilting back his head. "Not quite so cute." The pad of one thumb traced along the curve of his captive's lower lip. The narrow eyes behind the small dark lenses perched on the man's nose were predatorily intent. "...And yet a Prince, nonetheless."

He leaned forward over the unconscious young man, his eyes alight with sudden, malicious purpose. His tongue lolled forward even as his mouth closed over Lan's. It was so easy to turn his captive's head to exactly the right angle, to stroke open the closed line of the jaw. The soft, still lips offered him no resistance. He slipped past them, going deep and slow to fully explore the contours of the mouth beneath his own. Ah yes, that was very nice. Even nicer than he had expected it to be. It was no wonder that the annoying Lieutenant Colonel of the Secret Colors Battalion seemed so fixated on this particular young man. After a good long time, the soldier came up for a moment to catch his breath. He traced a hand lingeringly along Lan's cheek and down the graceful line of his throat before kissing him a second time. The young man had such a sweet mouth. Really it seemed a shame to stop there...

...But there would be plenty of time to play later. The man gave the tranquil lips one last, lingering taste before drawing back and wiping at his face with an expression of complete and utter satisfaction. His gaze went once again to the black holographic recorder, and he gave a lazy grin.

"Your precious Three-leaf is now mine," Barus said aloud.

"...Come and get him, if you can."

----------


	2. Glitch

Lieutenant Colonel Gingetsu returned home to find the front door unlocked and standing ajar.

Kazuhiko noticed the open door the same moment that Gingetsu did. His old military training took over, and he instinctively stepped sideways to put his back against the slight shelter of the outside brick wall. Gingetsu was a career military officer...he never would have left that heavy wooden door unlocked. The other occupant of the residence--Gingetsu's ward, Lan, always stayed inside the house, and wouldn't ever have opened the door in the first place.

_Somebody's been here_, Kazuhiko thought grimly. Pressed back against the wall on the other side of the doorway, Gingetsu held out his left hand. A brilliantly glowing sphere formed over that bare palm, the focal point of concentric rings of light that expanded as the sphere lengthened and coalesced into a familiar form. Soundlessly, Gingetsu slid the keen-edged blade of his katana from its sheath.

Kazuhiko slipped a hand into the pocket of his trench coat as he followed Gingetsu along the wall towards the open door. His fingers closed over a small, circular _Modem_--a purchase from the Xiaomao. He usually avoided using it, since activation of a modem made electronic 'noise', and that noise tended to attract unwanted attention. In this case, however, it might be necessary. He had a very bad feeling about what waited for them beyond that door.

Kazuhiko stepped soundlessly forward at Gingetsu's nod, then pushed the door open with his foot.

The room beyond was in shambles. Furniture and other items were untouched, but the paneling of the walls had been violently ripped open, and tangles of wire were strewn everywhere across the floor. Gingetsu surveyed the area a long moment before stepping cautiously inside, his expression unreadable. Kazuhiko trailed behind, picking up a heavy table lamp and stripping it of its shade, carefully winding the cord around the base. He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen, and Gingetsu nodded once in unspoken agreement. As Kazuhiko crossed to the kitchen and areas beyond, the Lt. Colonel glided silently off to the opposite side of the wire-covered floor.

Kazuhiko found nothing wrong in the rooms he checked...no evidence of vandalism, no signs of forced entry on the windows. All the valuable items in view seemed to be in their proper places. There were no signs of anything out of the ordinary. ...Except for one very important detail. Gingetsu's quiet freeloader, the young man who had never left the sanctuary of this place in the four and a half years since Kazuhiko had first met him, appeared to have gone missing.

As he took one last thorough look around the area, Kazuhiko suddenly heard the sound of a sickening crunch from the other room. Instantly wary, he adjusted his grip on his makeshift club and stepped back into the main room.

The noise had come from Lan's bedroom. Kazuhiko paused in the doorway, and saw Gingetsu standing over the desk that housed Lan's workstation, his face livid with fury. The bright blade of the katana had been driven through some electronic instrument that now lay in shards, and had embedded itself halfway to its silver and ivory hilt in the wood of Lan's desk.

Kazuhiko had a pretty good guess what the electronics device must have been. His mouth tightened down into a thin line. "Who?" he asked simply.

Gingetsu snarled a single name in response. "Barus."

----------

"Did everything go according to plan?"

Within the darkened confines of a large van, Barus was smiling. He lifted one hand to touch the microphone in his ear; the source of the woman's voice. His other hand was already occupied...resting on the edge of the hospital gurney strapped down beside him, his fingers caressing the slender bones of a lax wrist. ...Ostensibly monitoring for a heartbeat. That made as good an excuse as any.

"Like clockwork," he purred.

"Your movements will be traced," the woman said. "It won't take them long to follow." Her tone sharpened slightly. "You didn't have to leave that message behind. It was practically an invitation."

He only chuckled. "Of course it was. And I'll be very disappointed if they don't accept." Barus cast a sidelong glance at the two armored soldiers who rode in the back of the van with him. They were ignoring his one-sided conversation with the air, alert and on-duty against any signs of trouble from outside the speeding vehicle. Within the ranks of the Azurite Special Information Collection, soldiers were severely punished for allowing their attention to wander to things that were not their concern. "Besides," Barus added easily, "You knew my requirements when I first agreed to this little excursion."

"As you knew mine. The boy is unharmed?"

Barus looked down at the occupant of the hospital gurney, his eyes traveling over the entire length of the young man's pleasant and very enticing figure. The only thing to mar his natural and somewhat wild beauty were the loose loops of I.V. tubing across one shoulder, a slow feed of a drug to keep him heavily sedated. Barus lifted one of the pale, limp hands to his lips, savoring the feel of that fresh, smooth skin...the scent of young flesh. "Oh yes," he murmured. "Intact and undamaged, as requested. Though you could always reconsider. I'd so love to take home even one little piece, just for a souvenir."

"No." The voice that responded through the earphone was firm. "That would compromise everything. We need him to be compliant."

Barus gave a negligent shrug. "There's always more than one way to gain compliance." Indulging in his favorite fetish, he idly brushed the stubble of his chin against the lovely curves of the young man's palm, cupping those graceful fingers against his cheek. He captured a slender fingertip with his mouth and bit down on it playfully a few times with his teeth. Oops. It seemed he was getting too rough again. A drop of blood leeched out from under the nail, rimming the edge with bright crimson. He took the finger into his mouth and thoroughly licked it clean. Almost as an afterthought, he added aloud, "Prosthetics nowadays are really amazing. A replacement hand would be as good as new."

The woman's tone became one of profound disgust. "They told me about you, but I didn't believe them. You're a very, very sick man."

His expression became pleased, as if it were a compliment. "You noticed. Thank you."

"Hmph. You do realize that this job isn't over yet."

"Of course. It would be silly to quit right now." The eyes behind the dark, round lenses of his shades sparkled with a sudden, vicious delight. "...After all," he murmured in anticipation, "This little party's only just beginning."

----------

"They made it out of the country already."

"Yes," General Kou answered. She knelt in her usual place within the intricate throne of metal and glass at the center of the large audience chamber. "They made no attempt to hide where they were going or what they had come for. We recovered three stolen vehicles at the Azurite border."

"How long?" Gingetsu asked, using every ounce of control not to make the words a demand.

"A day at most. Certainly, this was a well-planned and professional job."

Gingetsu waited. The members of the Parliament never did anything without reason. The General would not have summoned him here just to give him that news.

"Lieutenant Colonel Gingetsu," she said, after a very long pause. "The Secret Colors Battalion has had more dealings with covert Azurite military projects than most of the rest of the army combined. They would seem to be the most logical choice to send on the difficult mission to recover the Three-leaf Clover. However...," the General's gaze was direct and unwavering. "There has been debate within the Parliament about the suitability of the officers of the Secret Colors. There is speculation that you, Lt. Colonel, are too closely involved to this situation already."

The General's thin hands folded together over her knees. "The Chairman of the Parliament in particular is troubled by this dilemma. It has not escaped notice that the one item of evidence which was left behind--a holographic image recorder, has already been destroyed. We can't allow such careless actions. There's too much at stake."

Gingetsu kept his face impassive. He was already very well aware of exactly how much was at stake.

"The Azurites aren't working alone. This force was able to get around a security system designed by Clovers, without setting off so much as a whisper that would trigger an alarm. Their technology should not be capable of that, which means they must have had help. This unknown faction, in addition to the formidable power of the Azurite Special Information Collection, means that this mission will be an extremely difficult one.

"There is another consideration as well." Here Kou paused, her old eyes becoming intent and oddly sad. "A Three-leaf cannot be left in the hands of the Azurites under any circumstances. Whoever leads this mission must accept the fact that if it's impossible to recover the Three-leaf Clover...if there's no way to get him out alive..."

Gingetsu couldn't allow her to finish that sentence. In a voice that left no room for doubt, he said, "I will see that he gets out alive."

"I sincerely hope that you do." The General's hand moved to the surface of the screen before her. "As you've already guessed, the fact that I've called you here means that the Parliament has decided to send your unit to retrieve the Three-leaf Clover. Funds have already been transferred to the correct account. Turn in requisition forms as usual for all the necessary supplies and munitions."

"Ryuu should go as well."

He had surprised her with that statement. He could tell, though she barely showed it. It was unusual for her to be surprised by anything. "Kazuhiko Faye Ryuu is no longer a member of military personnel. He voluntarily retired years ago."

"He has more experience at dealing with Azurite special operations forces than most. He would be a suitable consultant. It wouldn't be the first time the military has hired a civilian to help accomplish a job."

General Kou frowned. "His knowledge of the Azurite military is over three years out of date."

"His ties to the Xiaomao and civilian underground intelligence make his expertise ideal. Their networks extend far beyond this country's borders. They may even know who the Azurites are working with."

"Hmh." For a moment, Gingetsu thought she would refuse. Instead, she said, "The decision is yours. I _trust _you will keep Ryuu's antics under control." Kou's eyes crinkled in what might almost have been amusement as she added, "Will there be anything else, Lt. Colonel?"

"Yes," he replied after a moment, "There is." It was difficult to keep his voice even--to hide the faint hint of distaste that threatened to creep into his expression. ...But he had to do this, for Lan.

"I need to speak with A."

----------

"Tell me again why we're here?" Kazuhiko asked, looking around with mistrust at the large, open space of the circular room they walked in to. Thick iron girders and cables supported the high ceiling, and below it, heavy metal beams radiated outward like the spokes of a huge wheel. Gingetsu had stopped just inside the double doors leading into the room. Across from them was a set of stairs that formed a 'Y' shape, which joined opposite sides of a walkway, one that ran the entire circumference of the chamber. Kazuhiko found it difficult to tell for certain, but it didn't look like the Lt. Colonel was any happier about coming here than he was.

"To talk to A." Gingetsu said. It hadn't been a very helpful answer the first time Gingetsu had said it, and it wasn't a very helpful answer now.

"I knew you'd come," a clear voice spoke up from across the room. Kazuhiko tracked it immediately to a boy who had appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning forward with his elbows braced on some cables that served as a railing. Kazuhiko blinked. It was...Lan? This kid was in his mid-teens; but Kazuhiko could swear that he looked identical to the way Lan had looked maybe three and a half years ago. Kazuhiko took a second, longer look. Identical, except that the eyes that studied them were flat and hard, and gazed at Gingetsu in particular with a smoldering resentment.

Gingetsu took a step forward. "You know why we're here," he said.

The boy...A? smirked. "You lost C, didn't you." Absently he rubbed his right index finger, then dropped his hand back to the rail. "You thought you could protect him, but you really couldn't after all. I was right. He should have stayed here all along."

"Where is he?"

That question earned Gingetsu a glare in response. "Why?" A asked with sudden harshness, the anger in his eyes visible even from across the room, "Why should I help you? There's no reason I should."

Gingetsu's voice and face were both empty of expression. "It is the wishes of the Parliament," he said.

"Why should I help the Parliament?" A's voice was bitter. "They let C go Outside. Why should I help any of you?"

Visibly annoyed, Gingetsu didn't bother to answer.

The teenager made a noticeable effort to calm down. His gaze focused on Kazuhiko, and his mercurial temperament changed again, this time to one of apparent curiosity. "And who is he?"

"A friend of Lan's," Gingetsu replied.

A's eyes studied Kazuhiko a moment longer, and then he smiled. Casually, he remarked, "You won't find the person who killed your girlfriend by looking in the places you're looking now."

Kazuhiko hissed in a sharp breath and took a jerky step forward. Instantly, Gingetsu's hand was on his arm, his fingers gouging into the sleeve of his trench coat. "Don't," Gingetsu said sharply. "He doesn't know anything."

"Then how..."

"He's Lan's brother." Kazuhiko sensed that those words were as much of an explanation as he was going to get. Gingetsu glanced back up at the boy who was smiling coldly at them. "I knew this would be a waste of time."

"Wait."

The Lt. Colonel ignored the word, his hand falling on the handle of the door.

"C's alive," A said in a rush. When he saw that he had gotten both men's attention again, he added more grudgingly, "...But not awake. I don't know where he is. I won't know that information until he does."

Gingetsu frowned. Clearly it hadn't been the answer he'd been hoping for.

Kazuhiko looked at the Lt. Colonel and shook his head. "That won't help us," he said quietly. "The trail is already hours cold. We can't stay here and wait around."

"I can guide you," A said suddenly. "You can go, and I'll stay here and be at the controls. I'll fill in for what would normally be C's job."

"No." Gingetsu's tone left no room for argument. "There are many other military personnel who would be able to do the same thing."

"You're wrong," A smirked. That self-satisfied expression was disturbing on that face--on Lan's face. "I'm the only one who can guide you to C."

"You have no reason to make sure we live."

"C's my brother."

"He abandoned you."

A's eyes flashed murderously for a single moment. Then the rounded planes of his face smoothed and he assumed an air of disinterest. "Have someone else do it, if that's what you want. But if I'm there, I can still help."

Gingetsu looked as if he were going to refuse. Quietly, Kazuhiko intervened. "Hey," he said. "This place we're going to will be heavily guarded. I have no love for the Azurites, but their military is one of the best. It will be trouble, especially if we're dealing with Barus and his gang."

Reluctantly, Gingetsu nodded in agreement. But the expression on his face was not a very happy one.

A looked up abruptly, his dark eyes suddenly distracted and distant. As if speaking only to himself, he said simply, "He's awake."

----------

Lan opened his eyes to a dizzying jumble of green and brown and white. He blinked in confusion, and the blur of color resolved itself into what appeared to be the heavy branches of a large tree arching above him, partially blocking his view of a series of large panes of glass, through which he could see the clouds of an overcast sky.

He levered himself up on one elbow, realizing as he did so that he had been lying on the uncomfortable painted surface of what looked like a park bench. His clothes...he reached up to touch the fabric of the black T-shirt he was wearing. The shirt and jeans, even the beat-up sneakers, were all his own--though he didn't remember putting them on. In fact, he didn't remember much of anything except that he'd been taken from Gingetsu's house in the middle of the night...

This place...he seemed to be in the middle of some sort of forested park. A cobblestone path ran beside the bench he was on, edged by colorful flowers. There were trees everywhere. They looked real. Lan sat up, reaching out to touch the rough bark of the nearest one. It felt real. Lan had seen maybe five real trees in his entire life. Here he was surrounded by tens, maybe hundreds.

"You must be C."

Startled, Lan turned his head to find a woman standing alone beneath the trees, where no one had been only moments before. She looked to be about Gingetsu's age, wearing a simple violet sundress with a flowered print, her long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail behind her head. Lan's eyes widened as he looked at her. _She is_...

"I suppose I should say it's a pleasure to meet you," she added quietly. Was it his imagination, or did those dark brown eyes look a little sad? She took a few steps forward, her sandaled feet coming to rest on the cobblestone edge of the path. She smiled. Somehow the warmth of the expression wasn't able to chase away the shadow of unhappiness in her eyes.

"Allow me to introduce myself," she said. "My name is Iris."

----------


	3. Archive

The Fifth Chancellor of the Parliament spoke, his voice echoing slightly in the vast chamber of shadows where the five Wizards had gathered to hear news of the Three-leaf's abduction. The single eye visible behind the monocle he wore glinted with faint unease as he contemplated the now-dark surface of the circular screen in front of him. "It was a mistake," he said, "Ever to allow the Three-leaf Clover to leave the research institute. It was ridiculous to think he would be safe living in a private residence...even if the owner was of military rank." He lifted his chin to look at the others. "It's because of that decision that we now have this problem."

"No," the Fourth Chancellor disagreed. Thick lenses that were more metal than glass hid any expression that might have been in his eyes, but his voice held a note of unyielding certainty. "The security on that building was even better than the security at the institute, since it was designed and maintained by a Three-leaf Clover." He shook his head. "Even we five, the most powerful Wizards in the country, would have a hard time bypassing it."

The others were silent. There were only a few ways that such a security system could have been overcome. There had been no evidence of manual sabotage, of circuits that had been bypassed or damaged. Likewise, a thorough search of the system had found no residual loopholes that someone on the outside could have found and exploited. That left only the possibility that it had been an attack by an array of Wizards from another country...or the interference of the Four-leaf Clover. This last possibility caused the chancellors of the Parliament the most concern. The message that had been left behind at the site of the Three-leaf's kidnapping had been from Azurite special ops, and the idea that the Four-leaf, Suu, could be working with the Azurite government was unthinkable.

"We're wasting time," the First Chancellor said at last. "It's been nearly seven hours since the Three-leaf was taken. Arguing over the details won't help us to find out where he is."

"We already know where he is."

All heads immediately turned in General Kou's direction. "The information you received before is correct," she elaborated. "The younger Three-leaf was unable to determine the exact location of the older. However, because of the bond between them, we have a direction. A small force has already been dispatched across our northern border to bring him back."

The Fifth Chancellor raised his eyebrows. "You're certain that he's been taken beyond the border, then?" At her nod, he frowned. "This complicates things. The Clover Project has never been common knowledge. To undertake a retrieval mission on foreign soil, while at the same time maintaining the secrecy of the project...this matter requires some discretion."

The Fourth Chancellor was frowning as well. "Do we know," he asked, "Why the Three-leaf was taken North instead of over to Azurite? If the Special Information Collection was involved, they should have gone back to a base in their home country instead."

"Azurite does not have the Wizard power to have pulled this off," General Kou replied. "That's why they've always coveted the power of the Clovers. Someone else is helping them." She glanced over at the Chairman as she spoke. He met her gaze, but said nothing.

The Fourth Chancellor's expression did not change. "In that case, we must ensure that the Secret Colors Battalion won't fail in their mission."

"They won't fail. They are the best."

As the other chancellors rose one by one and filed out of the room, General Kou waited behind, calling up the latest data on her viewing screen as a pretense. Once the other three had left, she spoke aloud to the remaining occupant of the room. "You choose not to tell them."

Sage Shuu looked up from his own screen to meet her level gaze. "Yes."

General Kou looked away. "...And when will you?" she asked, allowing the barest hint of sharpness to creep into her tone. "After the Three-leaf is dead?"

"You know they won't kill him. There's something else they want." Sage Shuu brushed a hand over the surface of his monitor, and studied the picture that it showed him...the seal of a Three-leaf Clover. "The Three-leaf at the research institute was able to get a vague direction, but nothing more. The bond between the brothers is being blocked, and your selection of the location is only a guess."

"A guess. But it will be correct. It's the only place that makes sense."

"Yes." Sage Shuu's monitor went dark, and he rose to his feet, looking across the rise of the central dome at her. "The Clover Project was first started over thirty years ago. The other three chancellors of the Parliament know of the project, know enough to covet the power of the Clovers for themselves...but they were not there from the beginning. Of the Parliament, only we two know everything." His gaze was stern. "...And for now, that's how it will stay."

Kou said nothing as he left, only stared down at the Three-leaf seal visible on her own screen, trying not to think about the person who wore it, or what might happen before this unpleasant business reached its end. She passed a hand over the screen, turning it to black. Memories did not wipe clean so easily. She bowed her head over the monitor, whispering a single word into the empty room.

"Iris."

----------

"My name is Iris."

Lan blinked at the dark-haired woman, reminding himself that it wasn't polite to stare. He found it hard not to. The woman's presence was incredibly familiar to him, as if he had known her all his life...though he knew that they had never met before today. It was her power that he recognized. Such power he had only ever encountered in two other people, two people that he _had _known all his life. His brothers. "You're..." he said in bewilderment, "You're a Clover?"

Iris gave a small smile, and held her right hand face-up. Marked on her palm was a lobed tattoo, inscribed with numbers and a bar-code marking--a seal of the Clover Project. "Yes," she murmured. "A Three-leaf, like yourself. You're wondering why you couldn't sense me before, when you should have known of any others with an equal number of leaves or below." She glanced upwards, to the iron and glass lattice of the dome above them, the dome that covered this entire section of forested park. "This place is sealed," she said sadly. "No one, not even a Four-leaf, can sense the people here. If you try, you'll find that you can't sense the ones outside either."

With a disturbing start, Lan realized that she was right. No Wizards, no Sorcerers...no Gingetsu. Only his bond with A was still tangible...but very weak. The sense of isolation unnerved him. _What is this place? How can someone create a building that's shielded from the magic of a Four-leaf Clover?_

"I'll tell you how it was made, if you like," Iris said, as if reading his thoughts. She shook her head abruptly and forced a smile. "But before we get into all of that, you must be hungry." She ventured across the path that separated them and held out her hand. "There's more to this place than just gardens and trees. I can take us someplace more comfortable to talk."

He looked up at her from his seat on the park bench, wondering how much of a choice he actually had. But the alternative was to simply sit here and learn nothing at all about where he was or what his kidnappers wanted of him. Whatever they had used to drug him appeared to have worn off completely, but he realized that Iris had been right about food. Suddenly he was both hungry and thirsty. "Will you tell me the reason I've been brought here?" he asked her.

She bowed her head, just enough for her bangs to fall forward and hide her eyes. "Yes," she said softly, "I will." She drew in a deep breath and met his concerned gaze, her expression turning determined and a little grim. She reached down and pulled at his hand, and he rose to his feet out of politeness. He was taller than she was, but only by a few centimeters. Looking up at him, something in her dark eyes softened into sympathy. "There are many things that we should talk about, Lan," she said. "Come with me. I think it's finally time someone told you a little bit about the history of the Clover Project."

----------

_"You're leaving?"_

_Gingetsu paused in the act of putting on his coat. The boy, still wearing the set of borrowed pajamas that were ridiculously large on his small frame, had abandoned his breakfast and emerged from the kitchen to watch him. The dark eyes with their quiet intelligence took in the sight of the coat and the briefcase, and though the young voice had been steady, in those eyes lurked just a hint of anxiety. Gingetsu realized belatedly how very large and strange this house must seem to someone who was not used to being here alone._

_"I have to go to work," he said._

_When he didn't say anything more, an awkward silence fell in the roomful of space between them. The Lieutenant Colonel's rudimentary communication skills failed him, bringing home once again the fact that he was unused to having any kind of company around. This would be the first time that Gingetsu would be away from the place for more than an hour or two since the situation of the Three-leaf Clover had been resolved. Now that the crisis was over, it was time for him to resume his normal duties._

_The silence did not go on for too long. The boy offered him rescue in the form of a deeply drawn breath and a forced smile. Something inside Gingetsu found that simple expression unbearably painful to watch. "Have a good day, then," the boy said, with a valiant attempt at a light-hearted tone._

_Gingetsu fastened up his coat, acutely aware of the simple courage behind the boy's words. Another child would have begged for some sort of comfort, or tried to cause a scene. But Gingetsu already knew that very few children were like this one. "You'll be safe here while I'm gone," he felt the need to add gruffly. It sounded inane, a clumsy offering of reassurance to a new pet. ...Except of course that this was not a new pet. It wasn't any kind of pet at all._

_Nonetheless, the boy responded to that offered reassurance with a small smile...a real one this time. It barely touched his lips, but illuminated those expressive eyes completely from within. "Yes," he said quietly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Yes, I know."_

A nudge against his knee brought Gingetsu out of the past and back into the present. Kazuhiko, sitting on the seat across from him, was looking at him in concern. "Hey," he said. "We're almost there."

Gingetsu sat up a little straighter. There were no windows in the sides of the unmarked van, and a stack of strapped-down boxes blocked the windshield and front seats from view. However, looking past the other four occupants of the van who were conversing in low tones, he could see sky and buildings through the vehicle's tiny back window. He drew back the cuff of his jacket to look at his watch.

Kazuhiko noticed the gesture. "We're right on schedule," he remarked. "There haven't been any problems yet, so we should get to the place exactly as planned."

Gingetsu noted the use of the word 'yet'. He activated the _Modem_ in his visor to conjure an earpiece and wires to check in. He had been advised that it was imprudent for him to use his Clover magic too casually until they learned more about what they were facing. The ordinary 'noise' of a modem would be covered up by other background noise from the city around them. The frequency Gingetsu turned to was a secure one...at least as secure as a Three-leaf Clover could make it. Not that Gingetsu trusted A to keep his word on the matter at all. ...But as long as the Wizards of the Parliament were checking in on him, he supposed that Lan's brother would behave. There was a moment of static before a man's voice came through from the other end of the connection. "Sir."

"Lieutenant," he responded.

"We read your position as 15 kilometers Southeast of the intended destination. At the present rate of speed, if the current traffic patterns are maintained, you will reach it in seventeen minutes."

"Do you have any new information?"

"Some. The...encryption specialist...you assigned to us says that he's accessed only a small part of the target system." There was a pause. "Sir. He says you'll have to be patient, if you want his help at all."

Gingetsu's mouth thinned. He was quite certain that the Lieutenant was giving him the edited version of that comment. So much for A's good behavior. Gingetsu had disliked the idea of relying on A from the start. Unfortunately, in this case, there was no real alternative. "Get us a floorplan."

Another pause, this one longer. The Lieutenant's voice, when he spoke again, was distinctly uneasy. "He says that he will direct you."

"No." Absolutely not. "We need a map."

Another pause. "Understood. You'll make contact again once you reach the target point?"

"Yes."

"We'll have it for you then. Anything else, sir?"

Gingetsu was silent a moment. "No, that will be all." The _Modem_ hummed, and the communications wires vanished. His gaze wandered towards the front of the van, as if the visor he wore were equipped with X-ray vision and could see past the boxes blocking the view. ...See through to the road, and the solitary building that waited at the end of that road. Seventeen minutes.

"What will we do once we get there?" Kazuhiko asked him.

Gingetsu barely heard. "We wait," he said at length, "until dark."

"Hmph." Kazuhiko's voice was disapproving. "The army must have changed its regulations. What's wrong with daylight?"

"This is a special case."

"I see." Kazuhiko fell silent, following his friend's gaze to the blank wall of the boxes as well. "Don't worry," he said, in an undertone, one that escaped even the ears of the soldiers sitting nearest to them, "We'll get him back."

Gingetsu didn't respond. In the privacy of his own thoughts, however, he wholeheartedly agreed.

As far as he was concerned, there was no other choice.

----------

The long white corridor stretched out to either side of the woman, a barren hallway with a white floor, white ceiling, and white walls, one side of which was punctuated with a series of unlabeled doors. The place where Iris stood had a large, rectangular window overlooking the glass and metal framework of the domed garden. The trees shielded the Three-leaf, C...no, she corrected herself, _Lan_, from view. She'd had to leave before they could talk much. Something had come up, and her co-workers had called her away. She folded her arms, the crisp, white fabric of her lab coat crinkling against her skin.

She was both eager and reluctant to go back down to the garden, to converse with the Three-leaf again. Of the two emotions, she couldn't decide which was the stronger.

Three-leaf Clover. Iris raised her hand, to study the marking permanently inked on her palm. It had been a very long time since she'd seen any of the others from the Clover Project, the ones that had stayed behind with Grandma Kou.

Unbidden, an old memory rose to the surface.

The white hallway around her blurred--becoming a different white corridor, from a previous time and place.

_"Iris."_

_The sixteen year-old girl turned away from the window where she had stood, turning her back on the sprawling, interconnected buildings of the research institute spread out below. Grandma Kou stood at one end of the hall. As the young Three-leaf respectfully bowed to the older woman, she reflected that the title 'Grandma' probably wasn't appropriate to use anymore. Maybe 'General' or 'Chancellor'. It seemed that it was 'Chancellor' today. The old woman was dressed in the recently acquired robes of the supreme Parliament. The highest-ranking scientist of the Clover project had finally earned the title of one of the five highest-ranking Wizards in the country._

_It was a great honor, and one that was well deserved, though with all that had happened, Iris wondered if the post might have been a defense, in addition to a reward. Iris couldn't help but think that the other members of the Parliament had decided to elevate the General's position in order to keep a closer watch on her. With all the shadows and intrigues of politics, Iris wondered if that might not be how all members of the Parliament acquired their posts._

_The Wizard held out her hand. "I wish to speak with you. Come out of your tower and walk with me for a bit in the garden."_

_Iris joined her in silence, and they walked over to the lift that was waiting for them with an open door just beyond the end of the hall. There was the soft whirring of well-serviced machinery, and the lift began its descent. This particular elevator only went one floor down._

_"Are you ready to go?" Kou asked, as they stepped out onto the white tile of yet another corridor. Truly this place was a maze. The older woman looked thoughtfully ahead towards the three-way branch at the end of the hall. "There will be some here who will miss you when you leave."_

_Iris bowed her head, not quite sure how to answer that. "It's not my decision," she said at last._

_Kou sighed. "I know." She looked up and away, gazing at the walls as if they held secrets of great interest. "Now that the treaty that bound the three countries participating in the Clover Project has been dissolved, the results of that collaboration must be separated as well. All of the Clovers will be kept apart from now on." Her gaze slipped sideways to rest searchingly on the young girl's face. "You know that it's for the best."_

_Yes. They all tried to convince themselves that it was for the best. Iris stopped in the middle of the three-way intersection, hesitating even as General Kou paused in her first step onto the path to the right...towards the lift that led down to the gardens. "What will happen to them," she asked, her gaze straying to the hallway on the left, and to the row of unmarked doors that lay down that path. "...To the others?"_

_Kou stopped as well, following her gaze. "The other Clovers?" She glanced at Iris, then turned and started in that direction. Iris fell into step beside her._

_"Oruha the One-leaf has already gone Outside," Kou said. "The child is full of life and beauty, and her surrogate parents have fallen in love with her. They have decided to raise her on their own. At seven years old, she seems happy enough with that choice. Because she is a One-leaf, it will be allowed." Kou sighed. "She will always be carefully watched by the Parliament, however."_

_The General paused, stopping before the small window set into the first door._

_Iris could sense the person on the other side before she looked in. The Two-leaf Clover. The pale-haired teenager stood with his back to them, on the far side of the room, looking out the window at the other buildings of the institute. He stood absolutely still, his posture exact and perfect, like everything else within the spartan chamber._

_"Gingetsu will only be here for a few more days. He seems to have an aptitude for the military, and so has been enrolled in the top military academy. We hope he will make a good officer. The academy is also outside these walls, but since he is only a Two-leaf, it will also be allowed." She turned away and continued down the corridor._

_"The triplets will stay here," she said. "As you already know, all Three-leafs have the biological instability that causes premature aging. But as long as they stay here we can control it...even reverse it, so that time passes more slowly for them." She stopped before another door. Beyond the window, a nurse sat watching over three dark-haired toddlers who were playing with toy blocks. They looked just like any other children at play, except that the blocks they were playing with had mechanical devices implanted in them that allowed them to hover in mid-air--and all three toddlers were making them move around the room without using any device that could serve as a remote control._

_"And the Four-leaf?" Iris asked softly. The four year-old girl with the incredibly strong powers of the Four-leaf Clover was not staying in this wing of the institute. The place she had been moved to was top-secret, and only the members of Parliament knew its location._

_"Suu cannot be allowed to go outside, of course." General Kou sighed. "We hope that she is too young to remember all that's happened these past few weeks. The separation from her mother was difficult enough for the poor child."_

_"Yes," Iris whispered, picturing the lifetime of solitude that sad little girl had ahead of her, with no human contact and only the Auto Dolls for company. "The poor child..."_

It wasn't good to dwell too much on the past.

Iris forced herself to let go of that memory, the memory of the Clover Project, and to return to the concerns of the present.

There were enough things to worry about right here.

An approaching footstep sounded on the white tile behind Iris, intruding into her thoughts. She knew who it was without turning around, and therefore she didn't bother to. "I talked with the Three-leaf," she said aloud, gazing out the window towards the high arch of the domed garden. As always, she found herself thinking how beautiful it was. Beautiful, until one realized that the iron bars of the dome were nothing more than a spacious and glittering cage. ...Especially to the young man currently held prisoner there against his will. "He's a good person," she murmured. When the comment went unanswered, she sighed. "We're making a mistake."

"It's not a mistake," the woman behind her answered firmly. The unyielding tone held no mercy towards the subject of that statement, and no regret. "To not do anything would be worse."

Iris shook her head tightly, unable to voice her reply past the sudden lump in her throat. _What we're doing is wrong._ She half-hoped the person standing in her shadow would walk away, and leave her alone with her thoughts. But instead, arms wrapped around her, holding her close as if she were a child. She tried to stand stiffly against the embrace...but it was hard, so hard, to deny this person anything.

Warm breath brushed across her ear. "I know you don't agree with this. ...But even you must see that there's no other choice."

"Yes." Iris closed her eyes, repeating it like a litany that would bring her absolution. "I know there's no other choice."

"Don't worry," the other woman murmured soothingly as fingers stroked at her hair. "This will all be over soon."

_Not soon enough_, Iris wanted to say. Instead she said nothing. She allowed herself to be held a few heartbeats longer, then murmured, "I should be getting back to work."

The arms around her slid away in acquiescence, the only contact that remained was the feather-light weight of smooth hands resting on her shoulders. "You'll go back down to talk to him again?"

"To Lan. Yes." She hesitated a moment, then brought up the subject of their _other_ guest. "The White Leopard isn't going to stay on his leash for very much longer," she warned.

The other woman made a noise of contempt. "Barus will cooperate with us up to the moment that he finally gets what he wants out of this. We just have to be sure to get what _we _want before that happens."

The casual words caused Iris to feel something almost like pain. "All I want is for you to be happy," she whispered, so softly that she wasn't even sure that the other woman would hear.

...But those warm arms closed around her again, in an embrace that was everything, and soft lips brushed against the dark hair by her temple. "We will be," the woman said consolingly. "Both of us will be happy, for always." Too soon that touch retreated again. Iris yearned after it, but could make no move to follow. "And now," the woman said, her voice gentle, chastising, "You should get back to work. The sooner we follow through with the plan, the sooner Barus and his gang will leave us, and the sooner the Azurite government will fulfill their promise, once they finally get what they desire." The shadow behind her slid away then. Iris listened to the click of heels as the woman left, counting them in her head until they faded off beyond hearing.

"...Once the Azurite government finally gets what they desire," Iris repeated to herself sadly, lifting one hand to the cold glass of the window, as if she could press her fingertips through it and touch the expanse of the great dome below. The clover mark on her palm reflected back at her in perfect detail from the window pane...as if it was a still pool of water...or a mirror.

"...A Three-leaf Clover of their very own."

----------


	4. Mainframe

A/N: Heartfelt appreciation goes out to Kristin O., for valiantly wading through a much earlier drafts of both this chapter and the next.

----------

Lan stood alone in the shade of tall evergreens, one hand splayed against the much darker background of a living tree. It was beautiful here. The air around him was cool and fresh, and heavy with the scents of earth and pine. Beneath his sneakers, a rusty layer of shed needles lay in a rich carpet over the ground, while above him stretched a thick canopy of branches. This grove of trees was only one small piece of a much larger domain, a glassed-in nature preserve that surrounded him on all sides. The place was artfully arranged and immaculately cared for, a haven of green that seemed designed to make those who visited feel contented and at peace.

If Lan hadn't been a prisoner here, he would have liked it very much.

He listened to the gentle murmur of the wind in the trees, knowing that what he heard wasn't a real breeze--just a stirring of air by huge fans located high above in their framework of metal and glass. Using magic, he reached for, but couldn't touch, the electrical circuits that powered those fans. The dome that shut this place off from the outside formed a complete barrier. Even the electronics built into it were sealed beyond the limits of a Clover's powers.

The rough bark of the tree trunk pressed intricate patterns into the surface of Lan's palm. The bark had grown in layers of complex and chaotic shapes that flaked off like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle if he pressed down too hard. Earlier, in another section of the gardens, he had come upon a stand of white trees where the bark had peeled back from the trunks in strips, showing pink underneath like the inside of a shell. A little farther on there had been a small clearing in the midst of a grove of willows, where flowers blossomed freely in every color imaginable.

Beyond that he had found the glass wall that marked the edge of the dome. He had searched along it, looking for a way to escape this place--because for all its peaceful atmosphere, for all its exotic wonders and painstakingly cultivated beauty, this place was not the place where he belonged. The exits were obvious, he had found at least two of the huge gates that were set into the wall of the dome. But he quickly discovered that the sturdy iron and glass doors were ones that he couldn't use magic to open. His kidnappers had locked them with a deadbolts and padlocks, and Lan didn't have any keys.

So he waited, having no other choice, listening to the sound of the wind. Waiting for Iris to complete whatever task she had been called away for, so that she could come back, and explain to him why he was here.

"You look lonesome," someone purred, from very, very close by.

The intrusion of that familiar voice caused Lan to look up immediately. There was a man standing barely two paces away from him, a man wearing a jacket of the Azurite military. He was very tall, a centimeter or two taller than Gingetsu, even, and equally as broad. But while Gingetsu's quiet presence radiated safety and calm, this man was just the opposite, oozing threat. Lan stared at him, thinking numbly that Barus had always looked smaller when translated into pixels on a computer screen.

Lan swallowed, and recovered his voice. "I'm waiting for someone."

The comment earned him a delighted smile. "How about that. So am I." Barus' eyes, shaded behind the circular lenses of a pair of sunglasses, glinted with an anticipation that was profoundly unsettling. "Perhaps we should wait together."

Cold was beginning to invade Lan's stomach. He had done jobs with the Secret Colors Battalion often enough that he was very well aware of the White Leopard's reputation. With great difficulty, Lan forced himself not to look upwards. There were security cameras built into the glass dome, he was certain of it. But the heavy screen of pine branches blocked the view from above as effectively as it blocked the sunlight. It was very possible that no one even knew Barus was here. Barus took a step forward. In almost involuntary response, Lan took a step back. The Azurite officer crossed his arms, having the gall to look hurt. The fabric of his jacket hardly whispered with the motion. How could someone that big move so quietly?

"It only makes sense," Barus insisted. "If we're both waiting, don't you think we should keep ourselves entertained?" He took another measured step forward, and Lan retreated again--not realizing that he was being herded until he felt the unyielding bark of a tree trunk at his back. Lan placed his right hand flat against the surface of the trunk and shifted his weight to step to the side, preparing to bolt.

He hadn't realized how fast Barus was, or how far he could reach. A hand caught him roughly by the front of the shirt, twisting the fabric tight and shoving him back against the tree behind him. A second hand clamped itself beneath Lan's chin.

"Don't go so soon," Barus murmured happily. "See, the Prince hasn't arrived yet, and I don't have anyone to play with until he gets here."

Pushing at Barus was like trying to move a wall, and the fingers fisted firmly in the black cloth of Lan's T-shirt couldn't be pried free. Desperate, Lan drove his knee upward, only to have the other man effortlessly block the attack. "Cute." Barus stepped inside the arc of Lan's legs, effectively foiling further attempts. The solid weight of the man's body pinned him back against the tree, and Barus lowered his face until it was barely centimeters away. "But really, you're no challenge at all." Strong fingers dug painfully into the corners of Lan's jaw, and his throat closed over a small noise of pain as his clenched teeth slid apart. He writhed, trying vainly to escape as his assailant leisurely took possession of his mouth in a bruising and invasive kiss. This man was much stronger, strong enough to take anything he wanted by force, and Lan was helplessly unable, on his own, in this place, to do anything to prevent it.

Barus was not quick, nor was he gentle in his exploration. When at last he drew back again, both of them were breathing hard. He shifted his hold on Lan's chin, pushing it back to glide his lips along the young man's bared throat. The muscles there quivered and contracted with reaction as Lan swallowed hard. He felt Barus smile. Those slimy lips found and traced his collarbone, then worked their way back up the side of his windpipe. The grip on his shirt loosened, and a hand pushed up beneath the fabric to touch skin. Lan flinched, fighting back nausea and panic. "D-don't..." he managed.

Barus chuckled deeply beside his ear, and stubble scratched along the side of Lan's face. "Come now. Who do you think took care of you while you were sleeping? The trip across the border was long and boring, and I had to keep entertained somehow." The wandering hand became more adventurous. "Actually, this is all familiar territory to me."

Lan's exclamation of disgust was muffled, his breath stopped beneath the advance of that cruel mouth. _I don't...I can't...can't let this happen..._ Lan closed his eyes, summoning his magic and casting out in desperation for anything he might be able to use in self-defense. He had the sinking feeling that his own magic wasn't going to be enough to save him. There was nothing within this prison that a Three-leaf's powers could affect, and each time he tried to reach beyond the walls of the dome, his magic was rebuffed by the thick, impervious glass.

_There._ He almost missed it, the traces were so faint. It was the tiniest of signals, the faint pulse of an electrical current. Not above him, but below. There were rooms far underneath the dome, shielded by thick layers of rock and concrete. If he reached, he could just barely touch the circuits of alarms and lights and computers with his thoughts. Fear lent him strength, and he wrapped his mind around those interconnecting wires, to rip them free of their housings and drag them up through the stone.

A strong wave of Clover magic, with Iris' 'presence' laced all through it, smashed through that frantic contact, shattering Lan's power. The recoil of that gathered magic caught him unprepared, and his body spasmed in reaction as if jolted by an electrical shock.

"Barus!" A woman's voice intruded, cold and sharp. Iris. Barus chose to ignore her.

"Barus!" Louder, and closer this time. The words that came next were frosted with ice. "Unless you want to single-handedly sabotage everything that we've accomplished so far, I suggest that you release him right now. Or have you forgotten that you have other work to do?"

The big man paused a moment, appearing to consider. Then, because he could, he trapped Lan for one last, lingering kiss. Before drawing away, he allowed his breath to trace with deceptive softness against the side of Lan's cheek. "Don't miss me too much," he murmured. "We may get to play more later, after all." The imprisoning hands loosened, and Lan staggered to the side, away and out of his reach.

With a single, mocking nod in Iris' direction, Barus turned on his heel and sauntered off into the trees.

"Why," Lan asked shakily, after he had gone, "Why are you cooperating with him?"

Iris looked off in the direction he had gone, her expression betraying deep feelings of guilt. "I'm sorry," she said. "He won't be staying here much longer." She turned to Lan and bowed apologetically. "I've been a poor hostess, to leave you waiting here so long. Is there anything you need?"

Lan shivered, his skin still flushed and crawling with the memory of that man's touch. "Some running water would be nice."

Iris led him to the bank of a small stream, a flow pumped quickly over smooth stones to generate a current. There she left him in privacy, while Lan spent a long time trying to wash the clinging taint from his skin, the foul taste from his mouth. When at last he felt less dirty, he stayed kneeling beside the stream, his thoughts as unsettled and turbulent as the surface of the water. He sensed Iris walk up behind him.

"You were going to tell me," he reminded her, "why I've been brought here."

"Yes." She knelt on the side of the streambed beside him. She was wearing a tan cardigan sweater over her violet sundress now, and had on matching fingerless knit gloves. She set a lit oil lantern down on the ground nearby. It was getting to be late in the day, and it was already growing dark beneath the trees.

White daisies grew in the long grass here, and Iris reached out to cup one of the blossoms between delicate fingers, gently caressing the soft petals. She was silent for a very long time, as if pondering what to say. At last, she asked, "Lan, what's the difference between Wizards and Clovers?"

He blinked, taken a little off-guard. He hadn't expected the change in topic. Taking on faith that the question was leading somewhere, he answered almost automatically, "A Clover has more power."

Iris gave a small smile. "For us, that's true. Three- and Four-leafs certainly have more power. But," here she tilted her head to the side to study him, "what about a Two-leaf. Do you truly believe that a Two-leaf Clover would have more magic than a single Wizard, or would they both be equal?"

Lan took a moment to think about that. He had never met a Wizard in person, but he was always aware of them when they used their magic individually--as he was aware of Gingetsu's magic, within a certain limit of distance. Against the combined power of the Parliament, a Two-leaf wouldn't stand a chance. But against a Wizard acting alone? Lan suspected that it would be a pretty even fight. "A Two-leaf and a single Wizard are nearly the same."

Iris didn't stop there, but pursued that question with another. "What about a One-leaf? Would a One-leaf Clover be equal?"

"No," Lan said at length, thinking about the only One-leaf that he had ever met. Oruha hadn't had much magic of her own at all. "A One-leaf doesn't have a Wizard's power."

Iris allowed the satin petals of the daisy to slip free of her fingers, sitting back on the grass and drawing her knees up to her chest. The freed blossom bobbed a few times on its stem, then stilled. "So," Iris said, "haven't you ever wondered why Two-leafs and One-leafs are called 'Clovers'? Why not call Two-leafs 'Wizards' and One-leafs 'Sorcerers'?" She looked down, digging the toe of her sandal idly into the smooth stones at the stream's edge. "In addition," she continued, "The power of a Sorcerer is not so rare. A new one is discovered every few months. Why aren't these Sorcerers also called 'One-leaf Clovers'?"

Lan was silent. Within the shelter of his limited existence, forbidden contact with the outside world, he would have to admit that he had never had a reason to give the subject much thought.

Into the quiet Iris spoke, her words like pebbles tossed into still water. "Lan, have you ever heard the term 'genetic engineering'?"

In response, ripples of surprise. "Genetic engineering?"

Iris nodded, her gaze drifting away, out across the grass. "It's when someone tampers with the program that makes up another living thing. A human being, for instance."

She was silent for a long moment, her gaze focused on the growing darkness beneath the trees, giving him time to absorb and comprehend her words. "The Clover Project was a collaborative effort between countries to study the natural changes that allowed people to be 'Wizards' or 'Sorcerers'," she said at last. "The scientists of the project studied the genetic code of the people who had these powers, compiling a list of keys they believed were responsible for the ability to use magic." Her gaze came back to study his face. "It was a harmless enough goal. Actually, it was a very useful one, since it allowed them know what to look for when testing children who might have a talent for magic--especially those children whose power was latent and not yet developed.

"It would have been fine if they had just stopped it there. But the temptation to apply their newfound knowledge became too much for them to resist. As a result, the Clover Project became an experiment in human evolution.

"Individuals with no traces of magic anywhere in their family history were hired to provide the materials for the creation of human embryos in test tubes in the laboratory. The embryos that were produced--also carefully screened to ensure the complete absence of any pre-disposition for magic--were then altered. Their genetic code was re-programmed, additional data spliced in to confer abilities that never would have developed without artificial interference.

"Surrogate mothers were necessary to bear these modified children to term. The mothers were chosen carefully, and given exorbitant amounts of money. The money was a bribe from the government to prevent unpleasant questions from being raised, and to ensure that the women would be willing to abandon their children when the project decided it was time. Most of the women deserted the children as soon as they were born, cradling their paychecks as they left. Many didn't even bother to give the newborn infants real names."

Iris brushed her thumb across the surface of the glove covering her right hand, tracing on its surface the outline of the Three-leaf mark underneath. "Instead of names and families, we got these. Numbered and tattooed like lab animals, creatures in cages to be watched and monitored through each and every stage of development. Placed into ranks by the number of leaves we possess. The numbers weren't assigned as a ranking of power, though ironically when they tested us they found that it seemed to have worked out that way. The number of leaves actually signifies the number of mutations they made in each one of us. It just happens that all the genetic alterations are cooperative, working together to increase a person's magical power."

A little farther down the stream, a bullfrog croaked, and then another. Lan became aware of the high drone of cicadas from the trees above. "There were more of us in the beginning," Iris continued. "There were labs in each of the three countries involved in the project. But the groups were kept apart, and shielded so that they couldn't sense each other." She gestured up at the dome in the fading light. "Like this place. The dome was built by ordinary people, then the glass was bespelled by the magic of a Four-leaf Clover. Nothing gets through. No Major Waves, no Minor Waves, no Clover magic. The alternative is to go underground. Even a Four-leaf's power doesn't penetrate very well through a kilometer of solid rock.

"This dome was created by a Four-leaf, but not the one that you know. He was from the first generation of Clovers that the scientists produced--like myself, and your friend the Two-leaf."

Even amidst his internal turmoil at trying to sort out so much new information at once, Lan still caught her use of the past tense. _He_ was _from the first generation of Clovers._ "What happened to him?"

Iris' dark eyes grew very sad. "He fell in love."

She shifted her position, smoothing the folds of her dress around her ankles. "Things were different at the beginning. The Clovers of the project were allowed much more freedom. Everything was part of the experiment...and so when a Four-leaf of the project fell in love with a Two-leaf, it was encouraged rather than forbidden. I guess the Clover scientists were curious to see what would happen."

Once, the Parliament had almost refused to allow Lan to stay with Gingetsu, on the grounds that two leaves plus three leaves equaled five, a level of power they could not counter. Not directly. But a Two-leaf and a Four-leaf together would be worse. Two plus four equaled six. That amount of combined magic was hard to imagine.

Iris glanced over at him, taking note of his expression. "It wasn't as much of a power imbalance as you might think," she said. "Really, the power of a Four-leaf is infinite. How do you add to infinity? For a Four-leaf to fall in love with a Two-leaf is no different than a Four-leaf falling in love with a person with no magic at all."

"What happened to them?" Lan asked.

Iris sighed. "She...wasn't well. She was frail even as a child, and in adolescence the problem only became worse. The doctors tried their best to help her, but they couldn't fix what was wrong. She became very ill and eventually died.

"Something in the Four-leaf snapped. He hadn't been a particularly well-balanced individual to begin with. It was his lover who calmed him, who was his compassion and his conscience. Who was his happiness. Without her he had no other life. He had nothing left at all.

"So he filled that void with grief and anger and hate. If not for the project, I believe he would have turned those terrible emotions inward on himself, and committed suicide. But the Clover Project itself provided a convenient and much more suitable target for his wrath. Those people, they were the ones who had created the woman he loved--and they were the ones who had failed to save her. The sole purpose of his existence became a crusade to wipe out all traces that the project had ever existed. To destroy everything and every one, down to the last brick, the last file...the last body. Up to and including the other Clovers." Iris was silent a long moment, then bowed her head forward in sorrow, her dark bangs falling forward to cover her eyes.

"People do terrible things because of love."

Lan thought of Suu, who had faked her own death in the hope that she could one day be reunited with the man that she loved. ...Thought of Gingetsu, who had placed the key to his life in the hands of the Parliament so that a lost little boy could find a home and happiness--and continued to use his life as a bargaining chip every single day so that the young man that the boy had become could keep it. ...Thought of A, who believed that love was worth killing for, because he understood it only enough to know that living without love would make existence unbearable and meaningless. _It doesn't have to be that way_, Lan wanted to say. _People shouldn't have to make those kinds of choices._ But what right did he have to say that, when his own choice made out of love had robbed him of several years of his life--and worse, caused Gingetsu to suffer as well. He stared down at the grass, lost in a momentary surge of guilt and misery.

"How did they stop him?" he asked.

Iris closed her eyes. "That was partly my doing. My fault," she said softly. "There is only one thing that is a match for the power of a Four-leaf Clover. Another Four-leaf Clover." She shook her head. "The only other Four-leaf that I knew of was a four year-old girl, an innocent child. She was the only hope for any of us to survive. So I transported her directly to the place where he was, to a room full fire and fresh corpses. She was hopelessly outmatched. A four year-old doesn't stand a chance against someone who is nearly twenty. But her appearance there halted him, made him hesitate...and that was enough. Enough time for a government sniper to put a bullet through his heart. He fell to the ground right at the child's feet." Iris drew in a shuddering breath. "Not even a Four-leaf is immortal."

When she spoke again, her voice was subdued. "That was the end of the Clover Project as a far-reaching and country-spanning endeavor. The governments involved decided to pick up the pieces as best they could. They separated the Clovers, and hid their existence from each other to the best of their ability. And swore they would do every thing possible to prevent such a thing from happening again. From then on, the Four-leaf was to be kept in isolation at all times, and the Three-leaves were forbidden contact with anyone outside the project who might influence them in ways not approved of by the government. Any freedom beyond that could only be bought at a terrible cost." Her dark eyes flickered up to rest on Lan's face. "But that, you already know."

Lan looked away from her, gazing down at the surface of the stream. His own thoughts were just as unsettled. He wasn't quite sure he understood everything yet--and the part of him that followed all that she had said rebelled against accepting it. Everything the Clover Project had done...

"Why?" He asked her at last. "Why did they..." he found that he couldn't finish.

"Why did they create us?" Iris' mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Why do you think? The perfect way to provide security for government files. The best tool for espionage when collecting data on an enemy's secret projects. The ultimate override for offensive or defensive electronic systems deployed in times of war. There are hundreds of reasons that could be used as persuasive arguments. How else could the governments involved in the Clover Project justify the expense of the science involved?"

Lan shook his head. "But the ones that were most powerful, they kept locked up. Why would they put so much effort into creating something, and then fail to use it?"

"They didn't expect their experiment to work so well." This time it was Iris' turn to look away. "Or maybe they did. After all, it's the nature of humankind to create weapons which it fears to use."

_Weapons._ Lan felt sick at her words. He had never thought of himself as a weapon. To realize that someone had engineered him for that purpose, had altered what he _was_... The fingers of his right hand curled tightly against his palm, and he suddenly found it a little hard to breathe. Without the interference of the Clover Project, he wouldn't have all this magical power. In fact, he wouldn't have any magic at all. Instead he would've had normal childhood, away from the doctors, away from the labs. He would've gotten older at the same rate that other children did, without experiencing two years of advanced aging which made him twenty-four instead of sixteen. He would've been able to lead an ordinary life.

He probably wouldn't ever have been born.

He brushed his free hand across his eyes, noting as he did so that his fingers were trembling. It was too much to absorb all at once, too much to try and make any sense out of it all. If Iris was actually being honest with him about the Clover Project and what it really was.

Iris was watching him. Softly she said, "I have no reason to lie to you, Lan."

_Do you have a reason to tell me the truth?_ He avoided her gaze. It would be impolite to say the words out loud.

"The Two-leaf that you live with," Iris said, momentarily distracting him from those thoughts, "he must be very important to you." Lan raised his head to look at her, but her gaze was turned away from him now, off through the trees in the direction of the wall of the dome. It was nearly too dark to see anything beyond the circle of light cast by the soft but steady glow of the oil lamp. "He's coming here, you know. To rescue you."

Lan's breath caught in his throat. It was selfish, so selfish of him to feel that flare of hope. It was selfish for him to wish Gingetsu to put himself in danger for his own sake. Another thought occurred to Lan, and that hope abruptly guttered into fear. "How do you know?"

Iris' mouth twisted in something like pain. "It was unwise of the Parliament to send him," she murmured. "He is a Clover, and a Two-leaf at that." Her expression hardened, and she met Lan's anguished gaze with firm, unflinching resolve.

"All Clovers can sense those with an equal number of leaves or below. Because of that, we already know exactly where he is."

----------


	5. Resistance

Waiting had never appealed to Kazuhiko very much. It was one of the things he missed least about being in the army. One would have thought, after all his years of military service, and his three additional years of freelance investigative work, that he might have grown used to waiting by now. But he hadn't.

Ironically, his problem at the moment was that he _wasn't_ in the army any more. Despite the fact that he was wearing a uniform, a precaution against being hit by friendly fire, he was a civilian now--which meant that he hadn't been assigned a task to keep him busy. The spacious conference room that had been chosen as their temporary hideout was already being guarded, with a Secret Colors soldier stationed by each of the two doors. The remaining member of the small group, the Vice-Captain who was Gingetsu's second-in-command, was standing at the edge the large oaken table that filled most of the room, carrying on a murmured conversation over a secured com channel.

Gingetsu and the three other soldiers of this little raiding party had already gone on ahead, following a path parallel to the one the group had originally intended to take. The change in plans had come shortly after their entrance into this large and sprawling compound, when they had found the hallways empty, and found all of the rooms silent and dark. Kazuhiko had been in places like this one before. Usually, no matter what hour of the night it was, people would be working late and guards would be patrolling up and down the halls. The grounds outside had been crawling with guards. But the inside of this place was deserted. It felt like a trap to Kazuhiko, and he knew that Gingetsu had reached the same conclusion.

Kazuhiko positioned himself strategically by the doorway leading out into the main hall, and called up a schematic of the corridors outside the room. The network of blue lines covered the left lens of his pince nez. Lan's younger brother had finally come through with the map. He'd also been inactivating most of the automated security systems from afar-- disconnecting alarms, door locks, and traps, and inserting some sort of loop program into the video feed of the security cameras to cover up their movements. Kazuhiko still couldn't figure out why that creepy kid was helping them. He certainly didn't envy the Lieutenant who was their contact back at base, who was being forced to argue with A at every turn.

Kazuhiko moved the map field of view forward a few hundred meters. Several corridors bisected the one just outside the conference room. However, if they followed the hallway straight, it eventually would lead them to their goal: the large glass dome that formed the heart of this complex. The gates into the glass dome were part of four cylindrical towers, each maybe ten stories tall. Kazuhiko wondered why they didn't bypass the gates altogether. A high-energy laser could've easily carved through the outer wall of the dome, and spared them all the trouble of running around this maze of offices and labs and corridors. But, since they weren't, Kazuhiko figured there must be a reason. Gingetsu didn't take unnecessary risks.

The Vice-Captain ended transmission on her com, and motioned to the soldier guarding the far door. Gingetsu's group must be nearly at their destination. It was finally time for them to leave.

The corridor outside the conference room was just as dark and silent as before. The small group moved carefully, spread out at intervals of about two meters. Their progress was slow since they had to check each empty room before moving past. As they crossed another four-way intersection, Kazuhiko slowed. "Vice-Captain," he said, quietly enough that the sound carried only to the woman directly in front of him.

"I see it," she murmured back. The shadows in the hallway before them had started to resolve into boxy shapes--filing cabinets and office furniture that had been moved out of the rooms to stand against the walls. Kazuhiko once again consulted the map. This wasn't good. They had been anticipating an ambush, but not here. Gingetsu's group would already have passed beyond this section of corridor, moving on to where it widened and met the entrance to the ten-story tower ahead.

The Vice-Captain spoke a few words into her communicator, and the Secret Colors soldiers flanking them stopped where they were. She nodded at Kazuhiko's gloved right hand. "Can you get us some protection until we can get under better cover?"

Kazuhiko nodded and pulled off his glove, using the _Modem_ to summon his large, feathered shield. As he stepped forward to move to the front of the group, the hallway in front of them abruptly lit up in a deadly volley of light. The Vice-Captain fell back in time to get under cover of the shield, and the soldier in the rear dove forward and managed to escape with just a shoulder wound. But the soldier in front of them didn't make it. "Move forward to those cabinets now!" the Vice-Captain hissed, swinging her gun out beyond the edge of Kazuhiko's shield and sending back covering fire as they ran. From the yells of pain and the sudden decrease in the barrage of laser light, she hit at least two of them. It gave them enough of a respite to make it to the nearest stack of shelving. Kazuhiko let the shield dissolve and used the _Modem_ to summon a gun.

"Vice-Cap..." the warning was cut off as the soldier in back of them took a laser beam from behind. He was hit twice more as the Vice-Captain caught him. Two enemy soldiers had come in behind them, and were now occupying the intersection they had just passed.

"Don't look," the Vice-Captain said to Kazuhiko. He barely had time to close his eyes before a flash grenade lit up the inside of his eyelids with searing red light. The moment the light died, the Vice-Captain surged around the first row of filing cabinets, gun blazing. Kazuhiko took the other direction, dodging laser bolts from the blinded soldiers as the _Modem_ buzzed and the gun in his hand morphed into a sword shape. The two soldiers standing in the corridor intersection weren't able to keep firing for very long.

Kazuhiko quickly re-joined the Vice-Captain amid the laser fire of the obstacle course in the hallway. "Where's Gingetsu?" he asked.

They'd put down four more enemy soldiers. Kazuhiko thought there might be three left. Another one fell as the Vice-Captain answered, "Not responding."

"Damn." The air in the hallway had gone up a few degrees from all of the energy blasts. Kazuhiko hoped the sprinkler system wasn't about to kick in. "They seem to be falling back."

"If they decide to leave, let them go. Whoever's in charge already knows that we're here."

Kazuhiko grimaced. "If they don't leave, we'll be in trouble. It won't take very long for their reinforcements to arrive."

"You're right." The Vice-Captain glanced at the top edge of the filing cabinet she was crouched behind. "Time to go up." At her count, she and Kazuhiko vaulted onto the top of the cabinet and leaped across to the next one. The advantage of height and the element of surprise allowed them to take out the last of the enemy soldiers.

Quickly, the Vice-Captain recorded coordinates so that the Wizards or A would know where to collect the fallen bodies of the Secret Colors officers. Kazuhiko moved with her, but paused long enough to inspect one of the lifeless enemy soldiers. None of the soldiers here were wearing the heavy armor of the Azurites he had been expecting to see. Instead they were wearing much lighter gear, blue uniforms with an emblem on the front--a purple flower on a field of green. Kazuhiko was disturbed rather than reassured. If their enemy wasn't the government, or the Azurites, who else was involved?

As he rose to his feet again, he heard a noise from another one of the fallen. Kazuhiko turned in time to see a soldier who had been lying on the ground only a few moments ago straightening up with his left hand against the wall for support. His right hand was raising the muzzle of a particularly nasty-looking energy pistol, centering it on Kazuhiko. Instantly Kazuhiko activated the _Modem_ raising his hand as light coalesced over it as if in slow-motion...realizing with a sinking heart that he wouldn't be able to create a weapon before the other man's finger tightened around the trigger of the gun...

The man's shadow shifted behind him. There was a flash of light on metal and then the painstakingly slow flare of the gun. Kazuhiko flinched as the band of intense heat blazed past his shoulder, slamming into the wall behind him with an echoing crackle of thunderous energy. A wash of disturbed air left in its trail brushed across his face like a sun-warmed breeze.

A muffled screech and the clatter of metal jarred from nerveless fingers caused time to resume its normal course. The enemy soldier stared in disbelief at the meter's length of steel pinning his wrist to the wall. His gaze tracked the length of the blade, to the hand that held the hilt, and then to the owner of that hand. Gingetsu stared back at him, his expression impassive. The enemy soldier's features contorted with pain and fury, and he reached with his left hand to his waist, drawing a second gun for a point-blank shot at the Lieutenant Colonel.

A bolt from Kazuhiko's gun caught him in the chest a single heartbeat after the backswing of Gingetsu's katana engraved a permanent line across the man's throat. The soldier toppled backwards to the ground, very, very dead.

"Took you long enough to get here," Kazuhiko groused.

Gingetsu frowned. "We were delayed."

Kazuhiko noted that his group now numbered only three, and refrained from comment.

Gingetsu looked over at the Vice-Captain. "The entrance ahead has been sealed off. We'll take the second door in to the tower."

"Understood."

They re-traced part of the path that Gingetsu's group had followed. Kazuhiko saw the door they had originally been going to use. It had been completely blocked off with sheet metal and welded iron girders. From the look of things, the barricade had been constructed quite recently. With their current equipment, it would be impossible to try and go through. Farther down the hall there was another set of doors, and beyond that, another cluttered hallway that was scarred with laser-fire and littered with bodies. At a quick glance, there looked to be about fifteen soldiers. A few were dressed in the heavy battle armor of the Azurite military, but most wore the uniform that Kazuhiko had noticed earlier. Four or five of the dead soldiers didn't appear to have been killed by guns.

_Delayed, he says_. Kazuhiko shook his head to himself, surveying the carnage. _No kidding._

They didn't pause there, but continued on, following a curving hallway that went around the outer wall of the central glass dome. It wasn't very long before they arrived at the second entrance. Another communication with home base, and another brief battle of wills with Lan's uncooperative brother, and the electronic lock on the door's keypad blinked to green, the door sliding open.

A large semi-circular room lay beyond. The room had no windows, just a single door in the wall across from them. From the size of the room, it appeared to take up half of the bottom floor of the tower. It also seemed to be empty, except for a couple of unmarked boxes and some desks scattered with no apparent purpose around the white tile floor. Kazuhiko frowned. He was beginning to develop an intense distrust of office furniture.

The Vice-Captain and one of the Lieutenants stationed themselves in the hall, guarding in both directions. The other Lieutenant dove into the semicircular room as Gingetsu and Kazuhiko covered him from the doorway, and he skidded safely to a halt behind one of the desks. Carefully he checked behind all three of the desks in the room, without seeing any evidence of hidden enemy soldiers.

"What about the boxes," Kazuhiko murmured to Gingetsu. "Explosives?"

"No," Gingetsu replied. Kazuhiko knew from past experience that Gingetsu had some method of detecting electronic explosive devices, so he didn't question the answer.

When the Lieutenant carefully checked the boxes, he found that they contained nothing but papers. Gingetsu and Kazuhiko stepped into the room, and the Vice-Captain and the remaining Secret Colors officer took up their places by the door. The Lieutenant in the room moved across to the far door with its blinking keypad lock.

Kazuhiko moved forward slowly, tracing his left hand along the wall as he went. When he was about halfway across the room, he stopped, and turned towards the painted white surface to look at it more closely. There was something wrong with the walls...

The floor suddenly shuddered and rocked beneath them. Kazuhiko had to fight to keep his balance to avoid being thrown sprawling on the tile. He looked over at the doorway where the Vice-Captain was standing, then let out a curse as he saw the hallway beyond it rising quickly, the opening replaced by a wall of gray cement. "The room is going down..."

"Move!" Gingetsu commanded. All three of them sprinted for that closing gap, but none of them made it in time. The Vice-Captain's worried face disappeared as the gap that had been the open doorway became replaced by row after row of cinder block. They were descending at a rate of maybe half a meter per second. From somewhere far below, Kazuhiko could hear the faint whirring of heavy machinery.

Because Kazuhiko was listening, he caught a small sound that instantly made him turn away from the doorway to look across the room. Tiny slits were opening in the far wall, and he glimpsed a flash of light off something that lay just beyond. On instinct he lunged, his shoulder striking Gingetsu squarely in the chest, causing them both to tumble to the floor behind one of the metal desks.

Several energy beams criss-crossed the space they had occupied. The hapless Secret Colors soldier who had been left standing by the area where the door had been fell to the ground in silence, killed instantly. The wall behind him disintegrated like tissue paper under the force of the blasts, revealing that it was made of nothing more than painted fiberboard.

"Rats," a familiar voice called out cheerfully. "I missed."

"Barus," Kazuhiko muttered through clenched teeth. "I just knew we were going to run into that guy sooner or later." He shifted to get his knees under him, and bit back an exclamation of pain as fire lanced up his right arm.

Gingetsu noticed immediately. "You were hit?"

Kazuhiko shook his head. "Not really." He fumbled at the sleeve of his jacket. There was a blackened line burned across the sleeve just above the wrist. He rolled back the fabric to reveal an equally blackened line burned deeply into the mechanical flesh of his forearm. He flexed his fingers. Fortunately, everything was still functional. It made him a little lightheaded with relief. "If one is going to get shot, I suppose a fake arm is the best place. Ow. Now to shut off the damned pain sensors in this thing."

"Hello again, Prince," the voice spoke again, slightly muffled by the wall which formed the flat portion of this semicircular room. Apparently whatever was on the other side was part of this moving platform, too. Kazuhiko bet that the paneling and the door over there were both heavily reinforced from the other side. "It's been a while. Why don't you come out where I can see you, and we'll have a nice little chat."

Kazuhiko hissed in an annoyed breath. "Don't call me by that name, Barus."

Barus only chuckled. "That's what I like about you, Prince. You're as energetic and predictable as always. But you realize that you don't stand a chance here. Give up now, and I'll go easy on you. I may even let your annoying friend live, too."

_Go to hell_. Aloud, Kazuhiko replied, "We're only here to get back what you stole. If you're smart, you'll give up now and get out of _our_ way."

From across the room, there came the sound of a long-suffering sigh. "I was really hoping to play 'Tag' with you today, instead of 'Hide and Seek'. But, if this is the way you want it..."

The air suddenly filled with laser light, the beams slamming into the meager cover of the desk. Kazuhiko braced his back against it as the piece of furniture rocked under the force of all that energy. It wouldn't take those beams very long to chew their way through the metal. Kazuhiko activated the _Modem_ on the back of his hand to form a feathered shield between the two of them and the surface of the desk. Gingetsu looked the wide shield up and down, then glanced over at him. "Could that get us over to the locked door?"

Kazuhiko risked a look at the far door as colored beams of light ricocheted all around them. "In this heavy fire? Maybe. Where do we go once we get there?" He felt a shudder run along his arm as a bolt came through the desk and hit the surface of the shield. "I suppose it's either that or stay here...and this furniture won't last very much longer. Wait..." His mind churned rapidly. The fake walls of the room were blocked by real walls of cement, so there was no way out to the side. Kazuhiko glanced overhead, at a place where the ceiling had already been sheared away by laser fire. Up was not an option either. The true ceiling was over a hundred meters above them, a circular roof that was bisected by several lines like wedges cut into a large pie. _This isn't a tower at all. It's a missile silo_. Kazuhiko winced as yet another bolt slammed into the front of his shield. "What do you suppose is beneath the tile?"

Gingetsu wedged the tip of his sword into the seam between two of the tiles. The floor beneath the ceramic square he pried up was made of steel.

"...The moving platform itself. So much for that idea."

Gingetsu said nothing. As Kazuhiko looked on, he focused on the polished silver length of the blade. The katana _shimmered_, becoming more 'real'. It was as if it had suddenly developed its own aura, its own presence. From his position on one knee on the floor, Gingetsu slashed the blade downward, driving its edge deep into the metal of the floor, a fountain of sparks boiling up from the point of contact. Twice more, Gingetsu swung the blade down in vertical cuts...and on the third cut, a triangular piece of steel a meter long on each side and at least five centimeters thick fell away and tumbled into the darkness below.

Kazuhiko drew a deep breath, feeling faintly stunned. He'd never seen _that_ little trick before. He'd always thought it was impressive that the delicate-looking blade could pierce through two layers of heavily reinforced metal armor as if it were rice paper.

Gingetsu took a small flashlight from the pocket of his jacket. The intense beam of light shone briefly on the cylindrical walls of the silo, then lanced downward into the dark. The light was diffused too much by the distance to be able to see the bottom. After a moment, Gingetsu let the flashlight drop.

It was a very, very long way down.

Kazuhiko shifted his position. With the Azurite's lasers still raining death on them, they couldn't stay. But things didn't look good for their survival if they jumped. Kazuhiko glanced over at the Lieutenant Colonel and asked casually, "You wouldn't happen to be able to sprout wings and fly, would you?"

Gingetsu _looked_ at him.

Kazuhiko shrugged defensively. "It'd be awfully convenient right now if you could."

More and more of those laser bolts were hitting the surface of the shield, and Kazuhiko wasn't sure how long even _that_ would hold up. As he shifted to brace it more solidly against the energy impacts, he saw Gingetsu reach into another pocket of his coat, removing a long steel spool wound with what looked like black thread. Microfilament wire. "You saw the access door?" Gingetsu asked.

Kazuhiko nodded. About fifty meters down...twenty-five meters by now, there had been a metal door hinged to swing inward from the open space. A ladder ran along the wall beside it. They could make it down there, but their timing would have to be pretty good to get through the door before the platform caught up with them. Somehow Kazuhiko doubted that there was enough clearance between the wall and the moving platform to fit a full-grown man, and that was a messy way to die.

Gingetsu was already reaching down through the large, triangular hole in the floor, securing the end of the wire to the thick metal supports of the platform. The wire was very thin, and in time the strand would cut through the metal itself--but it should hold there long enough for the few seconds they needed to reach the door. Kazuhiko had to remind himself that the stuff could support the weight of a full-grown elephant if it had to, it ought to be able to support his weight without any problem at all. Gingetsu borrowed another flashlight and a second spool of wire from Kazuhiko's field supplies, and studied the interconnecting supports below the floor for a moment or two before lowering himself down and underneath. Kazuhiko swung his legs over the edge of the opening, still holding the shield, and hoping that the force of the beams wouldn't knock him through before it was time. The hand not forming the shield reached down to take one of the secured spools of wire that Gingetsu passed him.

"Count five seconds," he heard Gingetsu say from below. He closed his eyes, bracing himself, counting them in his head. When he reached one, he deactivated the shield as he simultaneously dropped through the hole in the floor.

It probably wasn't very pretty or graceful, but it was effective. Tethered by the arc of the wire Kazuhiko swung just wide of the ladder, close enough to grab onto it and pull himself up. Gingetsu already had the door open, so Kazuhiko climbed the few meters up to it and pulled himself into the stairwell beyond. They arrived safely with several seconds to spare. As the platform with its phony walls dropped past them, they could hear an angry shout, and a few last blasts of laser rifles.

"It sounds like they figured it out," Kazuhiko remarked. He looked around at the landing they were on. Below it was a set of stairs leading down. _Let's hope it doesn't go to the same place those guys are going._

The stairs went down for maybe five more stories, terminating in an unlocked door with a single window in it. The metal-lined hallway beyond was empty. Here even Gingetsu paused. "We don't have schematics for this."

Kazuhiko snorted. "Well, that might be a good thing. The ones we've been given so far doesn't seem to have been very accurate." He looked around. "I doubt that a radio signal would be strong enough to contact anyone on the outside. We could probably find some networked computers around, though. We can override security ourselves from there."

Gingetsu nodded curtly, and together they slipped out into the hall. They went maybe ten steps before Gingetsu motioned for Kazuhiko to halt outside a closed doorway. Rather than opening the door, he pressed on the metal paneling right beside it. A metal plate pushed in and slid up, revealing the monitor of a video intercom.

"This is part of the main system?" Kazuhiko asked, keeping a careful watch in both directions of the empty hallway as Gingetsu's fingers moved over the keypad.

"Yes." Gingetsu took out the coil of wire he'd used before when he'd contacted the Lieutenant back at base, and plugged one end of the connector into his visor. The other end was a match for a socket next to the keypad, and Gingetsu uncoiled the wire a bit further and moved to plug it in.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a voice from the intercom speakers.

The blue screen of the monitor burst into static. It lasted only a moment before the static was replaced by a two-dimensional image--a video picture of a young man. Kazuhiko recognized him immediately. The image was an exact copy of Lan. Or rather, a past copy, a duplicate of him as he had been in his mid-teens. The boy smiled, and Kazuhiko knew that there was no way anyone who had met Lan would ever confuse him with his younger brother. Lan's eyes had never looked so cold.

"Did I surprise you?" A said pleasantly.

"Where's the Lieutenant," Gingetsu asked him.

"He's dead," the boy pronounced. As if to prove his point, he wiped a spatter of blood from his cheek as casually as if it were rainwater. "I told him what would happen if he got in my way."

Gingetsu had gone utterly still. Kazuhiko's hand dropped to Gingetsu's sword arm. "Let's go," he said quietly.

"He won't," A stated with confidence, his gaze focusing fully on Gingetsu as his dark eyes lit with an unpleasant glow, "because he knows. He knows that he can't fight me." A smiled, and his voice became laden with vicious satisfaction. "From now on, you'll do exactly as I say. Because there's no one left to help you. And I'm the only chance you have of finding C."

----------


	6. Subnet Mask

Kou was tired.

She leaned against the doorframe of her dark and empty audience chamber, feeling every year, every day, every hour of her age. Her robes of office weighed her down. Heavier were the titles it carried with it. General. Wizard. Chancellor of the Supreme Parliament. They bent her shoulders and stooped her back until she felt that she could barely stand.

Old, she had grown too old for all of this. All of the intrigues and the arguments and the plots and counterplots of the Parliament. They debated the fate of lives like crows squabbling over carrion

She hardly had the energy to reach out with her mind and touch the command circuits in front of her, to bathe the chamber in brilliant white light. With a sigh, Kou stepped away from the doorframe and started over to the iron and glass edifice that stood at the far end of the room--a place that served as both nerve center and throne.

There was a bird perched on one of the metal rails, waiting for her.

It wasn't a real bird, Kou could see that immediately. It was a replica, one with beautiful red and gold wings. Kou's expression immediately shuttered, her back unbending slightly as she walked towards it. The bird's head swiveled, and it watched her approach with one unblinking dark eye.

"I've been expecting you," she told it.

The bird did not make a sound, but instead unfolded its wings, and hopped off its perch to hover in the air in front of her. She stood motionless as its small metal body became angular, broke up into shards of light, and re-formed itself into a small, rectangular screen--a screen which remained supported by those brilliant red and gold wings. The monitor was black. A wise choice. The one who had sent the bird did not wish to be seen.

-- _You chose not to help them_ --

Bright green letters scrolled across the flat glass surface. It was impossible to tell if those words carried curiosity, accusation, or indifference. No matter what the intent, guilt was the inevitable result. Kou bowed her head wearily. "I have protected A from the wrath of the Parliament. That's all I can do."

-- _Iris will be forced to act tonight_. --

"I know." Kou hoped that the delay the female Three-leaf had unwittingly provided would be enough. There was such a small margin of error there, and such an overwhelming opportunity for catastrophe. Kou gazed directly at the small, hovering screen. In a steady voice, she asked, "What do you plan to do?"

The cursor on the black screen blinked a minute in deliberation before scrolling out a single line of text. -- _You already know the answer_. -- As soon as Kou read the letters, they began to blur together, and the surface of the screen began to fragment. Within seconds, the entire device deconstructed itself, the bright shards vanishing away into nothingness.

Kou let out a deep sigh, the weight of her weariness falling over her shoulders once more. "Yes," she said. Then, more softly, "I'm sorry, Suu."

----------

Faint moonlight filtered down through panes of glass, frosting the long grasses of the garden with silver. The sun had gone down long ago. The moon was a pale crescent, it's lower edge just barely skimming the shadow that marked the top of the tree line. The sky beyond the surface of the dome was amazingly clear. There were no clouds, and no man-made lights to obscure the grandeur of the countless points of brightness that glittered against their backdrop of endless black.

Lan had lost track of how long he'd been standing out here in the open. It had been long enough that his neck hurt from staring straight up at the panorama above. The cool night breeze through his thin black T-shirt had started to give him a touch of a chill. Despite this, he just couldn't bring himself to look away from the night sky. He had seen the stars before through windows, their light faint and nearly intangible--no competition against the brighter illumination of buildings and street lamps and headlights that were everywhere in the city. He'd never seen stars like this, so brilliant and countless, nearly filling his whole field of vision.

Footsteps approaching through the tall grass shushed into respectful silence behind him. Lan had been waiting for them ever since he had sensed the other Three-leaf enter the wide boundaries of the dome. Iris was silent for a long moment, as if she were also taking time to gaze upward and admire the stars.

"Does it bother you," she murmured at last, "to always see them from behind glass?"

Lan's gaze shifted, from the shining lights to the black lattice of triangles that framed them. The iron bars of the dome. Another, more familiar image, one of thick square panes of glass set into the frame of a tall, arching window, rose unbidden in his mind. His enjoyment of the night sky dampened somewhat, Lan turned around to face her.

"Sometimes," he admitted quietly.

Iris did not reply. She stood motionless, the night breezes ruffling the hem of her sundress and her sweater. She held a small, shuttered lantern in her right hand. Her expression in the faint light leaking through the chinks and cracks was composed and neutral. "I've brought tea," she said, breaking the silence. "Please follow me."

She led him back the way she had come. A little bit beyond the open patch of grass were some carefully tended rows of cultivated flowerbeds separated by cobblestone paths and neatly-trimmed hedges. A row of tall evergreen bushes gave way to another patch of grass, at the center of which was a large white gazebo. Paper lanterns hung from the roof at each of the structure's corners, shedding flickering light onto a wicker table and four chairs. The table had been set for tea.

Iris gestured for Lan to take a seat as she picked up the teapot, her hands still wrapped in those fingerless knitted gloves. Lan slowly sank into the chair across from her and accepted the cup she offered. The aroma of green tea wafted up with the steam. The taste of the tea, when he drank, spread through his mouth, both warming and relaxing him. The fragrant cup cradled in his hands was like an old and intimate acquaintance. Here, at last, was something known, something familiar in the midst of all this strangeness.

"Do you like the flowers?" Iris asked suddenly. It took a moment for Lan to realize that she referred to the flowers that were arranged in a large crystal vase in the middle of the tea tray. They were tall flowers, dark purple painted with yellow, with leaves like blades of grass. Three of the six petals of each blossom curved upward in a graceful arc to meet over the center, the alternating three curving downwards toward the stem. "This is my namesake, the iris," she said, reaching out to stroke the fragile petals. "Many years ago, the person who named me told me that this flower is supposed to represent prosperity and..." she faltered slightly, "contentment."

The statement seemed to require a response. After a moment of hesitation, Lan said simply, "They're pretty."

The words earned him a brief but genuine smile. Then Iris' gaze traveled past him, past the arching doorway of the gazebo, to the tree line and the glass of the dome beyond. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak. "This place--as you may have guessed, I'm not free here. But I am happy. I have plenty to do to keep me occupied. I have the freedom to travel throughout this garden and part of the outside complex. The guards here have been instructed to obey me, and even wear the symbol of the iris as part of their uniform. Most importantly, this place is where my heart belongs. I have someone special here, someone who means more to me than anyone else in the world. The bars of my cage are not so terrible as long as I can be with her. But..." she turned her right hand over and traced the Clover mark on her palm through the surface of her knitted glove, "we may not be together for much longer."

She stopped and took a sip of tea, then looked across at Lan with a sad little half-smile. "In spite of my cage, I consider this country my home. I have lived here since I was sixteen, ever since leaving the research institute where the Clover Project was started. The government and the people here have been good to me. In return, I feel loyalty to them, and have always done what I can to help this place prosper.

"The country beyond the walls of the dome is one-tenth the size of most others. It also has one of the highest population densities in the world. It used to be a beautiful place with hundreds of acres of agriculture and natural preserves. Over time, however, all of the places that once held wildlife and forests have been demolished to make room for housing projects and factories to keep up with the growth of the population. The fields have been bulldozed to provide space for waste disposal and treatment facilities. The area under this dome is one of the few green places left. It's an archive, a living record of all the plants that used to grow outside but have been wiped out by our "progress".

"Our overpopulation has caused even more difficult problems than the eradication of trees and wildlife. We have reached a point where the population of this country has overwhelmed the carrying capacity of the land. Our natural resources were exhausted years ago. Our electricity comes from wind and water, but we have run out of materials to build dams and windmills, and no longer have places to put them. Food has become so expensive that many families have difficulty keeping even the most basic necessities in their kitchen. Wasting drinkable water has become a crime."

She absently brushed back a strand of dark hair that had come free of her ponytail. Her eyes had slipped from Lan's, and she didn't look at him as she spoke. "We have managed to survive by trade. Currently we acquire every single raw material of value from other countries. In exchange, we export technology, ideas and prototypes and services. Because we have always managed to stay at the forefront of research and development, we have always been successful despite the burden of overpopulation.

"Unfortunately, neighboring countries are now reaching the same point we were at ten years ago. Their supplies are growing scarce, they don't have the surplus of natural products--of building materials, metals, fuel...and food. They can no longer afford to trade these goods away. In addition, the items we are forced to sell become more and more valuable, and less and less replaceable. I'm afraid that my country is dying." Iris fiddled with the handle of her teacup. Her voice lowered. "Our scientists are working on a project, something that may provide the technological advantage to stave off our current decline. But internal difficulties have caused setbacks in the schedule. As a result, our one last hope may not be ready in time to save us.

"You asked me earlier why you were brought here." Iris set her cup aside and folded her gloved hands on the table. "Under normal circumstances, your government and mine would never have allowed us to meet. Powerful Clovers are to be kept separated from each other at all costs. But bringing you here was the only way I could talk to you face-to-face. It was also my last opportunity to meet you." She raised her eyes to Lan's. "I'm sure you know that your Parliament of Wizards met yesterday. I'm also sure that you know what they met to talk about."

Lan looked away from her searching gaze without saying anything. He had known. Suu had warned him. He wondered how Iris had found out.

"Lan," Iris said quietly, "What do you think they decided to do?"

He hesitated. "I don't know," he answered.

Iris studied at him with something like pity in her dark eyes. "Now that the aging curse that they put on you is gone, you know as well as I do that there's only one choice they can make. The Wizards are ancient, kept alive with medicine and mechanical replacement parts. They won't live forever. There's no way they can allow a Three-leaf to stay Outside. Far better to have you in a place of their choosing with time to prepare defenses against escape, then to keep you in your current cage with only a few thin walls and a threat to hold you there." She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes. "But you already knew that, didn't you. That's why, when those men showed up at your house, your first reaction was to try to run. Because you were already expecting the Parliament's soldiers to come and take you away."

Lan was silent.

"Lan," Iris leaned forward earnestly, "I helped to arrange your arrival so that we could talk, and so that I could offer you an alternative--one in which you wouldn't have to become a fugitive, or be separated from the Two-leaf who is so important to you."

He already knew what she would say. "You think your country can protect me, if only you can convince me to stay here."

Now it was Iris' turn to look away. "I told you that I would do anything for my country--but I can't change what I am. I have no talent for engineering and building things, that's not where my skills as a Clover lie. But you have that talent. No one has ever taught you, but you have trained yourself to be a builder, a programmer, an expert in designing electronics. Your talents could help keep my country alive.

"I'm offering you a chance to use your skills. But more than that, I'm offering you the chance to have a life with your most important person. Because we could bring you here, away from the spying eyes and the long reach of your government, and because the Two-leaf followed you, you have the opportunity. An opportunity to be happy. An opportunity to stay with the person you love." She reached out and touched his hand. "Please..." she started, her voice pitched low with entreaty. But she was interrupted before she could finish what she had been about to say.

-- _Iris_. --

It was just one word, spoken urgently in a tone barely above a whisper. Lan froze, recognizing it instantly as something sent over the _Minor Waves_. Only a Three- or a Four-leaf Clover could use that method of communication. The voice had belonged to a woman. Lan had heard that voice somewhere before.

Iris, too, had gone very still. She was frowning, staring hard into the shadows beyond the trees. She started to get up from the table. "I'll be back in a moment," she said.

Lan forced himself to take a breath. "Who was that?" he asked.

The other Three-leaf looked at him sharply. What she read in his expression--the dawning understanding that the two of them were not the only Clovers here, caused her own features to go pale. Several moments passed before she tore her eyes away from him, her face suddenly flushing bright crimson. She pushed back from the table so abruptly that she almost knocked her chair over. "I'm sorry, I have to go."

Lan stood up as well. "Please..." the earnest note in his voice caused her to pause at the edge of the gazebo floor. "Please tell me what's going on."

She stood there with her back to him, seeming to shiver in the flickering lamplight. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice almost pleading. "Just wait a little longer. You'll understand everything soon. I have to go." Then she hurried from the gazebo, out beyond the place the paper lamps illuminated, and disappeared into the night.

----------

The underground corridors all looked the same--white floors, metal walls, metal doors. The place was a labyrinth that seemed designed to mislead and confuse. The numbers painted in black on every doorframe were the only guide to prevent a person from walking in circles. Gingetsu had been keeping track of the numbers as he and Ryuu crept cautiously along the echoing halls. He didn't trust the instructions A had given them, and wanted to be sure that Lan's younger brother wasn't trying to do anything to deliberately get them lost.

The corridors deep under the research complex, like the ones at ground level, were nearly deserted. Gingetsu had only seen three guards so far, each wearing the blue uniform and badge that they had run into earlier. They had been easy to avoid. There had been no sign of Barus or Azurite soldiers. No alarms had gone off in response to their intrusion here, either. Gingetsu could only assume that A had taken care of any automated security measures already.

Ryuu, who had been ranging about ten paces in front of Gingetsu, came to a sudden halt and waited for him to approach, nodding to the painted plate on the doorframe. This was the number that A had told them to find. Gingetsu had been anticipating an elevator or a stairwell, but this door looked no different than any of the others they had passed. There was a palm print pad in the wall beside the door. As Gingetsu watched, the red LED on the front blinked off and the green one blinked on, accompanied by an audible clicking noise.

The lights of the room came on as Gingetsu pushed open the door. Beyond were several rows of laminated counters that seemed to serve as cluttered workspaces, with drawers and cabinets built into their base. Above them were tiers of shelving containing hundreds of labeled glass bottles. Against the walls were cases of books, filing cabinets, and desks littered with papers and computer equipment. Ryuu activated the _Modem_ on the back of his hand, giving up his ranged weapon in favor of his wicked looking feathered blade before stepping forward. He started down one side of the room as Gingetsu soundlessly swung the door shut and stepped toward the opposite side.

The display on the computer monitor two desks down flared to life. "You needn't worry," A's voice said, as his smug young face appeared on the screen. "There's no one here."

Ryuu kept going as if he hadn't heard. But Gingetsu halted in front of the image of A. He found it difficult to keep his features impassive. "This is a dead end."

A only smiled. "Of course it is."

Gingetsu ignored the threat in A's voice. If A had wanted to kill them, he could have tried at least a half-dozen times by now. Speaking slowly and precisely to mask his growing irritation, he said, "This lab won't help us find Lan."

"It won't." The teenager was watching him steadily. He seemed faintly disappointed when he didn't get any further reaction. "But there's something in here that's important. Are you curious?"

"You're wasting our time."

"Am I?" A's eyebrows arched. "I was doing you a favor, letting you see for yourself what's actually going on. It's your loss if you choose not to pay attention."

He didn't elaborate, and Gingetsu refused to ask. Instead the Lieutenant Colonel stepped away from the computer, surveying the room around him intently. Anything that A took an interest in was definitely dangerous. However, it was also unlikely that they could afford to overlook it...whatever it was.

Just past A's computer Gingetsu saw a windowless door with a latch but no lock. He reached out and opened it cautiously, and was greeted with a wash of cold air. When the lights didn't come on automatically, the Lieutenant Colonel reached for the switch just inside the door. The room lit up in a burst of harsh white fluorescence.

The walk-in refrigerator was filled with shelves of bottles, some equipment, and four squat metal cylinders sitting on the floor. The cylinders drew his attention. There was something written on each of them. Gingetsu moved closer, his gaze fixed on the tanks. No, not on the tanks, but on the symbols printed on the metal of each lid.

One-leaf Clover. Two-leaf Clover. Three-leaf. Four-leaf.

Gingetsu stared at the tanks for several moments without moving. Then he stepped out of the refrigerated room and closed the door behind him. A quick search of the nearest desk revealed two notebooks with dates from within the last year. It didn't take long to confirm what he had seen.

The tanks were dewars of liquid nitrogen. They housed the culmination of nearly a decade of research--a frozen cache of human embryos that had been characterized and catalogued, and then genetically altered with the Clover mutations that were supposed to have been lost from knowledge. Gingetsu had been old enough to remember the destruction of the first Clover lab. It had never been re-built. The next desk over contained other, older notebooks detailing earlier findings. The scientists of this country had started over at the beginning, painstakingly recreating the work that had gone into the first Clover Project.

But the scope of this project was much larger. There must be hundreds of cells here. The only thing currently required were mothers willing to accept the cells, and bear the developing children to term. The scientists had already begun to screen potential volunteers.

Gingetsu looked at A's hovering face, which had appeared on the monitor beside him. Lan's brother was looking extremely pleased with himself. "Is this why you led us here?" Gingetsu asked.

A folded his arms casually across his chest. "Oh no," he said smugly. "There's something in here that's much more interesting than that."

"Ah," Ryuu spoke softly from across the room, "You should come see this."

He was kneeling beside one of the desks against the opposite wall, gazing up at the upper surface of the opening that would usually fit a chair. As Gingetsu dropped to one knee beside him, he saw a piece of machinery about the size of a small backpack magnetically attached to the metal underside of the desk, a large dark box with several knobs and wires. Packed underneath was about a half a kilo of high-powered plastic explosive.

"My military knowledge is a little out of date," the other man said grimly, eyeing the ugly electronic device, "but please tell me that this _isn't_ one of ours."

Gingetsu didn't answer. Not only was the bomb of a design used by their own military, he could tell at a glance that it was one he wouldn't be able to disarm. There was a small leaf imprinted in the top surface of the bomb, a _Cord_. Secret and proprietary information. It encrypted and magically protected the device so that other Wizards would not be able to sense it or to use their powers to disarm it. That symbol was never present on military weapons unless the Wizards of the Parliament had acted unanimously.

"This is why they let us come," the former Vice-Captain said flatly, "and why the Parliament sent us in at night, so the building would be empty. They sacrificed Secret Colors soldiers to go against the Azurites so that others could sneak in undetected to plant bombs. We were the decoys all along."

Gingetsu studied the explosive device in front of him. General Kou had tried to warn him. She had said that Lan must be retrieved alive--implying that if he could not be, he would be eliminated. How long had the Parliament known about the underground Clover lab beneath the domed complex? Was it intelligence they had gathered while investigating the Three-leaf's disappearance, or had they known for years, and finally taken advantage of the opportunity that Lan's kidnapping had provided them? It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was accomplishing their mission--to rescue Lan before the detonation timer went off.

This bomb contained enough explosive to wipe out a large portion of the labs here underground, but it would never reach the dome hundreds of meters above them. ...Which meant that this probably wasn't the only explosive that had been planted. "We need to get to the surface," Gingetsu said.

"It's no use." A had switched monitors yet again. "There's less than fifteen minutes left before that bomb detonates. You'll never find a way out before then."

Ryuu stood up abruptly, his fists clenching with anger. "You were supposed to help us find Lan," he said harshly.

"I was," A replied in an offhand tone. Then he looked at Gingetsu, and hatred flashed in his eyes, "but then I decided that I'd rather watch you both die."

Gingetsu drew even with the image of A. He knew he didn't have enough magic to go against a Three-leaf, and there was nothing he could do to reason with him. Lan was the only one who had ever understood what went on in the mind of his demented twin.

"It's the perfect solution," A hissed with satisfaction. "You'll die down here, and I won't even have to be the one that kills you. C won't ever know that I got to watch the whole thing. At last, I'll get revenge on you for taking my brother away. And once you're gone, C will have no one left. He'll have no choice but to come back to me. We'll never have to be apart again."

"Lan will be dead."

A shook his head. "He won't. There are plenty of people here who have come to rescue him." He smiled. "I knew about the other team from the beginning, even though they tried to keep it a secret from me. No one can keep a secret from me, not even the old Wizards of the Parliament. Those soldiers are placing the last of the bombs now. When they're done, they'll go and get C and then get out of here, abandoning you."

"No," Ryuu said, with sudden cold certainty. Gingetsu looked at him, knowing that the former Vice-Captain had just come to the same conclusion he had. "With fifteen minutes on the clock, they'd already be leaving." He looked grimly into the gloating face on the computer monitor. "You haven't just killed us. You've killed your brother, too."

Something in the young eyes faltered. There was a fleeting glimpse of uncertainty, a fleeting glimpse of fear. A's expression darkened to mask it. "They've left the lower levels, but not the complex," he declared loudly. "They have to stop for C. He's too valuable to leave behind."

"They won't stop. They've already accomplished their objective. There's no reason for them to stay any longer."

A's face suddenly twisted into a mask of fury as he stared at the former Vice-Captain. "Stop it. You're lying."

"No," Ryuu answered simply. "Go and see for yourself."

A looked at him calculatingly a moment. Abruptly, the computer screen went blank.

Gingetsu wasted no time. Immediately, wires materialized in his hand, attaching to the side of his visor. He connected them to the port in the front of it the keyboard, and watched as data began streaming across the monitor, mirrored on the inside of his visor. Ryuu, who had been scowling at the screen after A's hasty exit, suddenly leaned forward to peer at the scrolling text. "The main system isn't blocked any more."

Gingetsu, absorbed in the data, didn't bother to answer Ryuu's statement of the obvious.

Kazuhiko fell silent. The scanned blueprint of the underground tunnels came up on the screen. The point of view narrowed to their location, then panned away, following twists and bends of the labyrinth like some crazy holographic computer game. It stopped at a circular shaft, another of the missile silos. A circular platform was already rising from the depths up to their current level.

"Looks like our ride will be waiting," Ryuu said, with forced cheer. He clapped Gingetsu hard on the shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get out of this dump."

...But even as the two men left the room, the unvoiced certainty hung in the air between them--that fifteen minutes was not enough for them to make it to the surface in time.

----------


	7. Intergrated Circuit

The tea was growing cold.

Lan folded his hands, restraining the urge to clear the table. He watched the fireflies drifting in the calm air beyond the wooden lattice of the gazebo's walls, absently wondering when Iris would be coming back. Not that he minded being left on his own. It gave him time to think. Time to consider what Iris had said. ...And what she hadn't said.

There was another Clover here.

That bothered Lan, more than he cared to admit. He hadn't sensed any others, even when he'd heard that voice speaking over the _Minor Waves_. Yet he'd always been able to sense Iris' presence, the aura of a Three-leaf Clover, whenever she entered the area beneath the dome. He reached up to touch his left shoulder out of habit, his fingers curling in the fabric that covered the clover mark tattoo. The only Clover that could hide from a Three-leaf was a Four-leaf, and, to the best of his knowledge, Suu was the only Four-leaf that existed.

Lan admitted to himself that the best of his knowledge was proving woefully insufficient in dealing with the situation that had developed around him. Restlessly, he got up from his chair, going over to lean against one of the archways in the gazebo, staring out at the night sky. His gaze once again fell on the black lattice of bars that comprised the framework of the glass dome. This place was beautiful, lavish, spacious. It didn't change the fact that it was still a cage. That was all Iris' offer really was. The choice of one prison instead of another. Was that really a choice?

Except...

_Gingetsu._

That was the root of the problem. This choice was not his alone. Lan knew that to live in this cage wouldn't bother him, he had spent his whole life in cages. He didn't even know what true freedom tasted like, save for one empty day in the rain. However, Iris' offer had included the Lt. Colonel as well. If Iris were correct that the Parliament had decided to lock Lan away once and for all, this might be Lan's only chance to be able to stay with Gingetsu.

Would Gingetsu be happy, living in this cage?

Lan believed he knew the answer to that question. After four years of living with the Lt. Colonel, he knew the temperament of the other man all too well. Gingetsu, like Oruha, was meant to be free, a Clover who would not be comfortable locked away in a cage. Gingetsu had experienced too much of the outside world to be content to live without it. To try would only bring him unhappiness--and Lan could never bring himself to do anything that might make Gingetsu unhappy.

Besides, Iris had said there was a _chance_ they could stay together. It hadn't been a guarantee. When it came down to it, Lan wanted to believe that her offer was genuine--but a lifetime of dealing with the Parliament, and A, and a multitude of other people who had their own secret motivations for their actions, he didn't trust her. If he didn't trust her, he couldn't accept the offer she had made.

Restless, Lan paced back to the table, then past it to the other doorway. He had only stood there for a few minutes, when he sensed a figure coming towards him through the garden. It was Iris. The Three-leaf was walking quickly, and soon he saw the blur of a pale sweater emerge out of the darkness in front of him.

Iris stopped a few feet from the gazebo's archway, her face set and serious in the flickering lamplight. "It seems you've made your decision."

Her words startled him. He knew that there must be surveillance systems monitoring him wherever he went in this place. For that reason, he was certain that he'd not voiced any of his thoughts aloud. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Of course not." Her expression changed subtly, transforming into something that could almost be considered a smirk. "It's because you don't yet understand."

Unease began to uncurl in the pit of Lan's stomach. He shook his head, trying to make sense of the words. "What don't I understand?"

"That you can't hide anything from us."

Lan looked at her. There were no other figures behind her. Iris was alone in the dark.

"You still don't realize, do you?" she said cryptically. "You don't realize who you're talking to." Then she slowly reached over and peeled off the glove on her hand, turning it palm-up to show the symbol tattooed on her flesh. The flickering yellow light illuminated the clover mark on her left hand.

...The _left _hand. Not the right...

Only then did he sense it, hidden until the very moment when he felt a cool touch on the base of his neck from behind.

The presence of a second Three-leaf Clover.

Power slammed into him through that deceptively gentle contact--a violent electrical shock like the discharge of a stun gun. The unexpected surge was too much voltage for even a Three-leaf to handle. Lan convulsed, and for the second time in twenty-four hours, felt his consciousness slipping away.

Hands were there, clutching at him, trying to break his fall. They succeeded only in keeping his head from hitting the floorboards. Those same hands tugged at his unresponsive limbs a moment later, rolling him over onto his back at the edge of the gazebo.

Iris' face came into his field of view. Her eyes were sad. "I'm sorry, Lan," she whispered.

Another face appeared next to hers, wavering in and out of focus as his vision darkened and skewed. There were two of them, he realized to his dismay. Two of them, and they were identical.

"I thought you of all people might have guessed, " the second woman, the one who was _not_ Iris, murmured in satisfaction.

"The genetic changes for the creation of a Three-leaf also increase the likelihood of twins."

----------

They were running down the empty corridors, heading towards the moving platform that would bring them up to the surface. As if, Kazuhiko reflected, running might actually help. Nonetheless, he would be the first to admit that it was better than sitting still and waiting to be blown up with the rest of the complex. Kazuhiko's feathered blade adorned one hand, but so far they hadn't run across another living soul. Maybe the building's occupants had already gotten the word and were evacuating, too.

A moveable wall slammed down from the ceiling, planting itself barely a foot in front of his face. He skidded and managed to hit it with his shoulder, grunting from the impact. He heard Gingetsu slide to a halt beside him. Just in front of the wall, without running into it, damn him. In frustration at the appearance of this sudden barrier, Kazuhiko smacked his hand against the metal and swore. "What the hell...!"

An intercom speaker in the hall beside them crackled with a sudden burst of static. "You were right." A's disembodied voice said grimly. "They were running away."

"Shit," Kazuhiko hissed, none too pleased that the brat was back. Any fleeting hope he might have had that they would somehow manage to find Lan and get out of this alive was evaporating completely. No need to wonder about A's use of the past tense "were" in referring to the other military team. He had no doubt that A had taken care of them already.

Light flickered in the hall around them, a manifestation of A's power. Apparently he'd run out of patience in waiting for the explosion to kill them. Kazuhiko looked at Gingetsu, hoping he would at least _try _to do something...but the Lt. Colonel was standing motionless, an impassive expression on his face as he watched the light solidifying into bars around them--long and black, a perfect cube. Kazuhiko recognized it now. It was Lan's teleportation cage.

"A." He heard Gingetsu say, as he watched his own body start to spin off disconcertingly in winding ribbons of light and shadow. Kazuhiko didn't know how it was possible so far underground, and without a _Move_. He'd heard that Lan had done such a thing once or twice, but each time it had exhausted him to the point of collapse. "Why?"

The intercom speaker on the wall crackled, as if with a short huff of breath. A's voice, thin and strained and nearly inaudible against the background static, gritted out in determination. "Do your job." And then, in a last burst of static, "Save my brother."

The underground room around them vanished into a shower of scintillating light.

----------

Sound flowed over him, a string of meaningless syllables that came, first from one direction, then from another. As he tried to focus on the low, constantly shifting reverberation, he became aware of a different sound, a slow, beeping noise. It gave him something steady and constant to focus on. Lan could sense the electronics that were the source of the beeping, coming from a metal box lying nearby. A monitor, he realized, after a moment of drifting thought. Beating in time with the rhythm of his own heart.

He felt cool grass underneath him, the gentle night breeze blowing over him. He must have been transferred off of the gazebo's floor. He still couldn't open his eyes or move in any other way. His limbs were unresponsive, wrapped in paralysis. There was something very wrong about that. A subtle and constant electrical current ran through him. He could sense it just like he could sense the current in the box beside him in the grass. That minute flow kept him motionless, originating from a spot at the top of his spine.

A voice, breaking the silence, then. This time, Lan understood the words. "He's waking up."

A gloved palm rested lightly on his forehead. "Don't try to move." A gentle voice, Iris' voice. "You won't be able to."

"He shouldn't even be awake," came the first voice, nettled. It was also Iris' voice, but different in tone--much the way A's voice was different from Lan's.

"Did you expect any less, from another Three-leaf? It won't make any difference, in the end."

Lan heard the familiar sound of plastic creaking, as wires were unrolled. A light touch to his right temple, then, and a patch of coolness that adhered to his skin. An electrode, he realized. That caused a moment of panic, and he heard the electronic beeping noise increase to match the beating of his heart.

"Relax," Iris whispered softly, even as a second electrode was pressed to his other temple. "This will all be over soon."

That was not reassuring in the least. Beginning to get desperate in light of his lack of ability to move, Lan turned his attention inward, to better examine the current that was keeping him paralyzed. An electrode had been attached to the back of his neck, the plastic casings of its wires bespelled by Clover magic so that he couldn't sense them from the outside. From the inside, however, he could follow the path up the copper leads, which connected with the sophisticated electronics of a military issue visor. Iris' visor. He heard her gasp.

Clover magic surged in response, as Iris reached for and clasped the hand of her twin. The two of them pushed him back effortlessly, and sealed off that electrical pathway from his magic. He could still feel the cool patches of the electrodes, and the plastic casings of the wires that brushed against his skin, but now he could no longer sense the current running through them, even from the inside.

"I bet you think that was clever, don't you?" Iris' twin snapped shrilly. She drew in a sharp breath and held it a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was calmer, more controlled. "It's useless. You can't do anything against us. Three plus three equals six. Nothing can stand in the way of two Three-leafs if they choose to work together. Pity you never decided to go back to your brother, or you'd understand this fact."

"Please don't fight us, Lan," Iris added softly. "You'll only make things harder on yourself."

Another touch, another electrode, this one placed precisely in the center of his forehead. Lan fought back the panic that clawed at his throat. He didn't know what she was doing with Clover magic or how she was doing it. It made no sense to him that his limbs didn't work. An electrical current could stun, or cause muscles to spasm uncontrollably, but an ordinary current couldn't cause this kind of limp paralysis, could it?

"No," Iris said softly, "it can't."

Lan had barely registered the fact that she had answered his unspoken question before she started speaking again. "I can read your surface thoughts, when I concentrate on them," she murmured. "You see, I, too, have a specialty. As yours is in engineering, so mine is in neurophysics. The human mind is not so different from a computer, the electrical impulses along neurons and synapses is the same as current carried along copper wires. It's a different brand of Clover magic, but is Clover magic, nonetheless." He heard a rustle as she sat back a bit. "Your friend the Four-leaf knew this, too. It's how she was able to help you when you were in the hospital, and allowed her to remove the aging curse the Parliament had programmed into your body before you were born."

He didn't doubt her words. In fact, her actions over the course of his time here all began to make a horrible kind of sense.

"I bet you didn't realize," Iris' sister said smugly, "the two of us have done contract work with the Azurites before. Two years ago, my sister created the host interface for a computer virus with the ability to infect human beings. ...And I developed the encryption signature that delivered it."

_Of course._ The Icosahedron virus. Lan felt suddenly cold. He had direct experience with that particular computer virus. Two years ago he had been infected, and it had nearly killed him.

"You have to understand," Iris said quietly, in defense of the terrible weapon she and her sister had helped to create. "The benefits we got from that work kept our country alive with imports from the Azurite government for two full years. It saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and lives."

It also could very easily have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. ...But Lan's jaws were still locked, his throat closed with the paralysis that blanketed him completely, and so he wasn't able to point that out--although he would bet that she was able to read it in his thoughts.

"I didn't want to do it," Iris's voice was so low as to almost come out as a whisper, "Please believe me when I say that I don't want to do this, either. But then, as now, we have no choice. The Azurite military wants a Clover. They have always wanted a Clover. What they are willing to offer in exchange will sustain this dying country for years to come."

Lan's mind raced to digest this new information. He had been right not to trust her. In all of her explanations, all of her logic and carefully worded lures, there had only been the illusion of choice. She had intended to hand him--and likely Gingetsu as well, over to the Azurites all along.

But it didn't make sense to him. She had to see that there was a flaw in her plan. Iris could trade him away to the Azurites, but what would they gain in the end? That country had no way to make him stay. Everyone knew that Azurite had no Wizards--and with no Wizards, how could they possibly hope to keep a Clover under control?

"Ah," Iris's sister murmured in satisfaction, "You see the difficulty immediately. The Azurites are well aware of this problem. Their encounter with the Four-leaf Clover two years ago taught them that. There isn't much they can do against a Three-leaf, either--so their contract dictates that a Clover must come to them willingly...or with some sort of pre-installed control."

Lan didn't have much time to digest those rather ominous words. Iris' twin was bending over him now, and although he couldn't see her face, he could almost feel her predatory gaze as she looked down. "Which is why you were brought here, of course," she added.

"...So that we can re-program you."

Lan momentarily stopped breathing. That couldn't mean what he thought it did. She couldn't possibly intend... There was an abrupt flurry of staccato beeps from the monitor beside him, as it kept time with his suddenly racing heart.

"Enough," Iris said firmly, to her sister. She repeated in a quieter voice, "enough. We have a job to do, nothing more." There were metallic clicking sounds then, as of leads being snapped into jacks on a visor. "Let's just get this over with now"

"Yes," Iris' twin agreed.

There was the rustle of cloth as the two sisters joined hands. Two sets of fingertips settled over the electrodes secured at Lan's temples, and he knew despair...

----------

A's power couldn't go far enough to reach inside the dome, but it brought them close enough. They materialized on one of the huge circular metal platforms inside one of the missile silos, this one plain and undecorated without any ceiling or false walls. By glancing upward and doing a quick calculation based on the tower they'd been in before, Gingetsu knew that they were even with ground level now. There were two doors here, set into opposite sides of the tower. He quickly drew up the schematics for the tower on the interior surface of his visor, and moved without hesitation for the nearer of the two doors.

It was locked, but the lock was electronic, and opened readily to the touch of a Two-leaf. Beyond was a large square room, and on the far side was the iron and glass gate that sealed the interior of the dome.

There was also a flat, rectangular box, about the size of a small backpack, lying up against that gate.

"You should get out of here," Gingetsu said, as Ryuu stopped at his shoulder. He heard the other man catch his breath in dismay as his own gaze fell upon the Wizard encrypted bomb.

"What, and leave you here?" he said, only half indignantly.

"I have to get to Lan."

"Forget it."

As Gingetsu looked at him, Kazuhiko folded his arms and set his face in his most stubborn expression. "You promised me. There's no way in hell that I'll let you die before I do."

"Ryuu."

"I said forget it. I'm coming with you."

Knowing better than to try and argue with his mule-headed former aide, the Lt. Colonel walked over to the gate, summoning his katana as he went. Allowing a trace of his Clover magic to flow down into the sword, he tapped the hilt against the glass, cautiously at first, then with greater and greater force. The pane of glass, when he stopped, showed no mark. The reports had been correct. The structure of the dome was impervious to any form of a Clover's power.

Not so, the heavy iron deadbolt securing the gate. The sword sheared through the metal with absolute ease.

Which left the bomb. It had been placed in the exact middle of the gate, so that opening either side would knock into the mechanism and cause its detonation. Attempting to move it would only result in the same. Gingetsu crouched down beside the device, searching the top until he found the leaf mark, the _Cord_ of the Parliament. The only option left was to try and disarm it himself. He didn't have much hope that he would succeed.

"Can we figure out how much time is left?" Kazuhiko asked, crouching down beside him.

Gingetsu's left hand hovered over the surface of the box. If it was synchronized to the one underground, it wasn't difficult to guess.

"Forty-five seconds."

----------

Lan felt Iris' presence in his head. Her touch was gentle, cool and professional, as she and her sister calmly sifted through his mind. Cataloguing his memories, he realized with a sick insight, as the pattern behind her search queries began to emerge. She worked quickly and competently, as if each memory was nothing more than a computer data file, to be sorted and tagged.

Each one was being marked to be erased.

It was a violation far worse than anything Barus could ever dream up. Paralyzed by the combined power of the twins, the Clover magic that he knew useless against this type of attack, Lan was in torment. He saw what they saw, as the multitude of memories that comprised his being were laid out for their casual inspection like a series of photographs, each one charged with emotion.

Contentment: _a stolen moment curled on a seat beside the windowsill, sipping tea and staring out into the rain._

Excitement: _the adrenaline rush as he hacked an enemy base, bringing down the defenses so that the Secret Colors soldiers and their leader could get out alive._

Loneliness: _the emptiness of the house_ _on a week that Gingetsu left on a mission that took him hundreds of miles away_.

Satisfaction: _the quiet happiness of preparing a meal in the kitchen, on the anniversary of his decision to go Outside._

Lan fought the twins as best he could. He still didn't understand even half of what Iris was doing, but he could comprehend the method in her actions--not so different from the invasion of an enemy mainframe. In his desperation, he called upon every trick he had learned with computers over the years to try and oppose her. Some attempts worked, some didn't. Password protection. Encryption. Firewall. Each time Iris encountered one of his clumsy, rudimentary mental constructions, she dismantled it.

...But Lan was getting better and better at these defenses with every try.

Iris' sister hissed. "He's learning your techniques too quickly. We're going to have to put him to sleep again."

"No," Iris answered distractedly. "I'm almost done."

Iris delved deeper, sifting through memories more private and more personal. Lan became frantic, struggling to put up false trails and barriers, or otherwise do anything that might allow him to elude their control. It did him no good.

Grief: _the day Gingetsu had returned from work to tell him that Oruha the One-leaf had died._

Anticipation: _heart-tight, in a suspended moment of intimacy, the first time hands had touched bared skin in the dark._

Regret: _When he had looked into a mirror shortly after leaving the labs, and not seen A's face looking back._

Four years of memories, reviewed in a tiny fraction of that time. Three memories left, then two, then one. Lan clutched the last to himself, as if by the mere action of holding it close he could keep it from Iris' grasp. But she was merciless even then, prying the fragment of memory from his clutch like a bright coin taken from a child.

Love: _The glint of light on metal and glass, as a gift was pressed into young hands. A voice, gruff and uncertain, but colored with the first hints of gentleness. "If you don't have a light of your own, light one for yourself."_

It was done. Everything was tagged and ready. All Iris had to do was key the deletion.

If he had been able to, Lan would have wept. As it was, two teardrops gathered under dark lashes and slipped from the corners of his eyes. _Gingetsu_.

He felt Iris come to a halt. Nothing happened for several heartbeats. Then Lan felt tears that were not his own splashing gently onto his face.

"I can't," Iris whispered brokenly.

Fingertips moved on Lan's forehead, as her twin shifted back in surprise. "What? What do you mean? We're so close, there's no way we can turn back now."

"I'm sorry," Iris said. Lan heard her stifle a sob. Iris' hands lifted away from him, and must have gone to cover her face because her next words came muffled and distant. "I told you from the beginning that this was wrong. I thought I could. But I just can't." She gave a choked noise, a bitter laugh. "It seems that I just don't have the strength after all."

Her twin stiffened with resolve. "Then I'll do it," she said without hesitation.

"No..." Iris said, her voice still heavy with emotion. "No." she repeated, and tone of it firmed with growing determination. "I can't allow you to do it, either."

"Do it!" the other woman snapped out, her voice seething with poorly suppressed rage. "This is no time to have a crisis of conscience. You have to do this, or they'll separate us for good! Is that what you want?"

"I don't. But there has to be another way."

"There isn't! The only other way involves me going to Azurite, and I won't. I won't leave you!"

Iris was silent.

"I don't want to go to Azurite! I _won't_ go to Azurite!!" Her twin's voice was spiraling up into hysterics. "Do you hear me? I _won't_ go to Azurite!!!!"

The ground suddenly bucked underneath all of them like a living thing; and the world became engulfed in thunder and fire...

----------

A/N: Not the end...


End file.
